Review: Ci Siamo (Chelsea/Midtown West/Hudson Yards)’s fall-apart braised lamb, focaccia perfection, and heavenly desserts

At Ci Siamo, an Italian restaurant located in Hudson Yards (or is it Chelsea? Or Midtown West?), laziness is rewarded with complimentary wine. I’m not kidding: if you take the elevator, there’s a glass of complimentary wine. What better way to say “here we are” or “we’ve finally arrived”, which is what ci siamo translates to?

Unfortunately, I schlepped up the narrow dimly-lit staircase and was teleported into the most spacious and luxe restaurant interior I have been to you. The hostess let me know I was the first to arrive (what’s new when it comes to the two friends I was dining with?), and someone else offered to check my backpack and coat complimentary. This service, while small, means that Ci Siamo would be a perfect restaurant for people traveling to or from NYC via Penn Station, a short 6 minute walk away. In fact, I passed two people on the ground floor who had luggage and were leaving.

Ci Siamo is also a 5 minute walk from Madison Square Garden and would be a solid choice pre- or post-concert or basketball game. Hell, even though Ci Siamo is a 25 minute walk or 17 minute train from the Theater District if you're seeing a show I'd say it's worth the slight detour.

As the hostess lead me between tables and behind servers, skirting around wine bottles chilling in large basins of ice, the full expanse of the restaurant dawned on me. Ambiance felt luxe without being pretentious or stuffy, fine dining without being exclusive. Welcoming. It checks all my boxes for a more-upscale date night. While most people dressed a small step above what I call NYC casual, Ci Siamo does not have a dress code. Anything goes. The atmosphere, while grand, is not unique, perhaps thanks to its newness and the surrounding Hudson Yards mall-hell area.

I tried to give the cocktail menu a once-over, but I was distracted by the smell: the warm acidity of tomato sauce, a slight smoke, roasting garlic, bread, and so on. I could smell hints of it from the host stand, but it was so damn strong and pleasant back towards the kitchen, I was sad when my nose got acclimated to it way too fast.

When my friends arrived, I passed around the sweet amaretto, almond, egg white, bourbon, and walnut bitters Mandorla cocktail ($19) I had ordered, while they gushed about how delicious (and overly sweet for one who doesn’t prefer sweet cocktails) the mandorla was, and how wonderful the restaurant smelled.

It’s hard to find friends who are willing to order as a group, share everything, and split the bill at the end. (Besides being lovely company of course) These are my friends for that. And I think everyone who likes to eat needs a couple friends for that.

I didn’t choose Ci Siamo. I can’t remember the last time I picked an Italian restaurant for a solo dinner, let alone group dinner. My friend chose Ci Siamo and I don’t know any of his criteria for picking our every-other-month dinner restaurant besides Ci Siamo being on InKind with an unbeatable deal: spend $150, get $50 off. Insane.

All of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group restaurants are on InKind with incredible deals: the famous one Michelin-starred Gramercy Tavern (headed there this month with the same two friends, where we’ll repeat this whole shebang), Southern-inspired cocktail bar Porchlight (on my list!), and new-American two Michelin-starred The Modern. Ci Siamo hasn’t received any Michelin stars though, at least not yet.

When we asked the server for recommendations, he rattled off half of the menu, adding more tantalizing detail. Unfortunately, some detail was lost in the slightly above moderate volume of the restaurant, but I did catch him talking up the braised beans ($17), mentioning that the NYT wrote an article on the dish, complete with a recipe.

In the end, we ordered:

• [Appetizer] Caramelized onion torta with balsamic and pecorino toscana ($26)
• [Appetizer] Cast iron focaccia with tomato conserva ($16)
• [Pasta] Rigatoni alla gricia with guanciale and black pepper ($28)
• [Protein] Wood fired whole trout with pine nuts and mustard greens ($39)
• [Protein] Braised lamb with celery pesto, pistachio, and cabbage ($35)
• [Dessert] Lemon torta with olive oil and meringue ($16)
• [Dessert] Basque cheesecake topped with winter citrus ($16)

It was the perfect amount of food for three hungry people. Everything was phenomenal. There were absolutely no misses in my book.

I love a restaurant with impressive bread and Ci Siamo’s focaccia ($16) was the best I’ve ever had. The crisp, “buttery” (for lack of a better word since it’s made with high-quality olive oil) crust shatters and gives way to a fluffy, tender interior with a masterfully open, bubbly crumb. My favorite way to eat it was sans tomato conserva (didn’t think it added anything) or dipping oil. Just pulled apart and piled straight in.

I asked them for their secret. Their response? “The key to getting a crispy outside is good olive oil and a high baking temp! The olive oil gives great flavor and moisture, and the excess will bake off leaving a nice crust behind.” I'm sure the industrial oven helps a lot too, but maybe I could figure out how to finagle my dinky oven to get something close.

While the caramelized onion torta was a favorite at the table, it was my least favorite. A butter tart shell filled with buttery, caramelized onions, and covered in a rich pecorino fonduta is a little too heavy for my preferences, and I thought all of the flavors were weighed down by the fats and lack of acid. The first few bites were wonderful, the remaining little less enjoyable. Two out of three people at the table raved though, and it seems the torta is so popular Chef Hillary Sterling shared the recipe via the Wall Street Journal.

Despite having a decent amount of smoky, salty guanciale (cured pork jowl or cheek), the Rigatoni alla gricia with guanciale and black pepper ($28) was magically not greasy and somehow lighter and more complex in taste than the caramelized onion torta. Perfectly al dente, perfect sauce-to-pasta recipe.

Ci Siamo removes the bone from the braised lamb with celery pesto, pistachio, and cabbage ($35). It is tender and fell apart completely after too many forks dug into it. If I was smarter, I would have gotten video proof of tenderness, but I’m still learning. I have never been very into lamb after eating gamy lamb chop after lamb chop and just assumed I didn’t like lamb, but Ci Siamo’s braised lamb was hardly gamy making this a safe choice if you likewise don’t typically order lamb. I’d say go for it!

The slightly smoky, wood-fired trout filled with croutons, pine nuts, and mustard greens ($39) at Ci Siamo also helped me unlearn that fish is unsafe (the trauma of having a fishbone stuck in my throat for two days, picked out only after a trip to the Hungarian doctor when I studied abroad in college, after an ill-fated date with the best fish and chips I’ve ever had on a weekend trip to London). The stuffing erred on the slightly saltier (which is the side I like to err on), slightly oily side, but it was cut by the bitterness of the greens. Best of all: no bone issues! I did eat very slowly though. The skin was so crisp.

We ordered the lemon torta with olive oil and meringue ($16) and Basque cheesecake topped with winter citrus ($16) for dessert. Although the lemon torta was filled with smooth, creamy lemon curd and lemon desserts are my favorite, the Basque cheesecake was my favorite of the two, perhaps because it was unexpected. The only other Basque cheesecake I had before this was from Grace Street, and it was thick, heavy, and very very sweet. This one was very light and hardly had any burned, dark caramelized flavor. And the winter citrus was the cherry on top. When I return I plan on getting the bomboloni with chocolate amaro sauce ($16), which is segmented into six tearable pieces, perfect for sharing.

Ci Siamo's stunning simple yet flavorful desserts were developed by James Beard award-winning pastry chef Claudia Fleming, once the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern, author of the much loved baking book The Last Course, and currently the Executive Pastry Director for Union Square Hospitality Group. Food and Wine wrote a beautiful piece on her return to the NYC restaurant scene, and the NYT wrote an older one chronicling her path to pastry chef.

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Dinner at Ci Siamo was the most pleasant, most enjoyable meal out I’ve had in a very long time. It’s even taken the cake as my favorite restaurant, dethroning Aliada.

Remember that time I went to Vic’s on Great Jones and was also pleasantly surprised? Turns out Ci Siamo’s executive chef, Hillary Sterling, was the former executive chef at Vic’s. *Quietly adds Sterling to the list of chefs whose cookbooks I need*. With these two successful Italian dinners, I think I can finally say I generally like Italian.

I’m already rubbing my little hands together, plotting out who to bring to Ci Siamo next. Dietary restrictions? No problem. I emailed Ci Siamo about it since the online menu doesn’t delineate between vegetarian and gluten-free options. They assured me that they have gluten-free pasta available, but it's not made in-house.

As for their response to vegetarian options: “Most of the pastas are vegetarian and the salads and vegetables are as well. Some items that have meat can also me made vegetarian (to give an example, the ravioli can be made in a vegetable broth instead of a bone broth). Please check with your server for specifics on substitutions as those will depend on the week and what the kitchen has available.”

Ci Siamo opens their reservations 28 days in advance, at 12 noon each day, but the entire bar and lounge area open for walk-ins.