It’s like they purposely named this joint using a weird anagram or word jumble of all the other Italian joints in Manhattan on this dumb Website. Becco. Il Buco. Osso Buco. Al Bacio. To name a few. I think there was once also a joint called Buca di Beppo, which is fun to say, but I’ can hardly differentiate from this place’m pretty sure is just the same Roman god mated with the sound of an Alpha Romeo’s horn. This place, Bocca di Bacco, has three spots in town, including this one in Chelsea. Which almost automatically makes this less interesting to me as an eatery. Not that a place with multiple locations can’t be good, but it puts this conveyor belt, factory notion in my head. I have mini-chain problems.
My unresolved issues aside, I can’t help but feel, after entering this place, that there is a bit of a generic quality going on. They have this logo that looks like Zeus or some shit. But I think may be Bacchus, the god of wine. Despite this not being a wine bar. I don’t know, it just looks like something that a marketing company whipped up from a “Mediterranean Restaurant” template in 2007, which for whatever reason makes it feel like some place my grandparents would eat at. It ain’t modern, this look. The space itself is large and somewhat sprawling. The incredibly busy tile floor is capped by a weirdly low tin ceiling that somehow absorbs the minimal amount of light coming in from the windows at the front of the space. It makes the restaurant — even in full sunlight — appear murky. It’s not bad per se, but there’s something awkward about the layout which screams anti feng shui. Plus, my eyes are aging and I hate the fact I have to use my stupid iPhone light to see the damned menu in this inkiness.
I can’t say we really swung for the fences here. Granted, the Italian menu is pretty standard fare. We got some fried calamari, which was actually pretty good. Granted, $22 for a squid app is a little steep. The three other people in my party also got a meat and cheese board. I may have nibbled on some cheese (though there was really only one type of cheese, oddly), but demurred on the whole pork butt thing. Or whatever that cured meat is made of. I think it was generally fine, but unremarkable. My drink — a Manhattan — was professionally put together, but didn’t blow me away. For my main, I got a rigatoni pollo pazzo, which is basically a rigatoni vodka with grilled chicken and sun dried tomatoes. It was a human-sized bowl of pasta and was pretty decent. I’ve had better. I’ve had way worse. All in all the meal was exactly what I expected it to be: a medium-priced, somewhat down-the-line Italian meal in Manhattan. Nothing was offensive, but nothing was great. I could lay out fifteen examples of this same pasta dish from fifteen similarly-named eateries in Manhattan and probably not be able to tell much of a difference between them. Ultimately, it comes down to where you want to eat, and this space is just a little too janky and odd to warrant a repeat visit.
169 9th Ave. (corner of 20th St.)
212/989-8400
boccadibacconyc.com
