San Matteo Pizzeria E Cucina Sets A Standard For Neapolitan Food In New York
If, however, there are first-rate pizzas to be found within a restaurant that is also serving excellent Italian food across the board, I'm happy to heap praise on both. Remarkably, a ten-year-old trattoria on New York's upper east side named San Matteo Pizzeria e Cucina has evolved so that it probably should switch its name to San Matteo Cucina e Pizzeria, for the Italian food, from antipasti through main courses is among the most robust and delicious in the city, thanks to Fabio and Ciro Casella, whose bonafides begin in their native Salerno. Moving to New York in 1999, Fabio worked at the fabledDean & DeLuca and Mike's Deli of Arthur Avenue before striking out on his own with his brother to open San Matteo Pizza & Espresso Bar in 2010 on 90th and Second Avenue, then the current restaurant on 81st in 2015 (with another on East 89th Street).
Once a staple of Italian-American restaurants in New York, potato croquettes return at San Matteo ... More Pizzeria e Cucina
Back then the siblings helped revive an interest in southern Italian food, particularly Neapolitan, including the puffy crusted, soft-centered pizzas invented in that city, which transcended the thin-crusted anomalies that ruled New York for years. To get right to the point, yes, San Matteo's pizzas are as close to those of Naples as you'll find in New York––with a yeasty, flavorful crust with real chew, charred bubbles and toppings that make sense, from a classic Margherita to a Paesana with tomato sauce, housemade mozzarella, eggplant cubes and basi,l and Cetara with tomato sauce, mozzarella, capers, oregano, black olives, Sicilian anchovies, garlic and basil. They also make wonderful calzones and panuozzi, a specialty of Salerno, made with baked pizza dough, sliced and stuffed with a variety of ingredients including roast porchetta, mortadella, prosciutto, broccoli di rabe, buffalo mozzarella, marinated eggplant, arugula and roasted peppers.
Potato gnocchi in a rich cheese and tomato casserole.
Were you able to resist ordering a pizza as a first course, I highly recommend the luscious, cream-centered burrata and prosciutto or the crocche di patate––potato croquettes of a kind that used to be on so many Italian restaurants, now here revived, with a crispy fried crust and velvety interior.
Of course the potato gnocchi alla sorrentina are housemade, of the right, tender texture and cuddled in a tomato and eggplant sauce, while other options include tagliatelle with mushrooms, spaghetti cooked in a pouch, and rigatoni with a convincing bolognese sauce rich and complex with vegetables and meat.
A massive tomahawk steak is some of the best beef in the city.
Main courses revert to traditional fare like chicken parmigiana (another dish now back in favor everywhere), but Fabio recommended a tomahawk steak, which I could see dry aging in the restaurant's refrigerated cabinet. I'm always hesitant about the bravura show of the naked rib at the end of a massive sirloin, but the meat, perfectly charred and cooked medium-rare, was some of the best beef I've eaten in ages, at a time when high-end steakhouses all (falsely or otherwise) promise dry-aged USDA Prime with very little marbling or flavor. This tomahawk specimen had a minerality, a sanguine sweetness and a rich fat content that I recall from the days when the Prime grade really meant something. The steak is huge and four of us––albeit after pizza and pasta––managed to consume only about half the thick, rosy slices; the rest came home with the bone.
For dessert there's a generous tiramisù, but even better is the cream-centered lemon cake.
San Matteo has a modest wine list fit for a trattoria, with plenty of bottles under $100.
Storefront pizzeria decor gives San Matteo Pizzeria e Cucina a no-frills ambience.
There's not much to say about the décor, which more resembles the average pizzeria than a stylish trattoria. Try to get one of the two tables by the window overlooking the avenue.
The Casellas have done well with two New York units of San Matteo, and this year will be selling their pizzas at the upcoming U.S. Open. Plans are in the works for a gelateria in the neighborhood and maybe San Matteos in other cities. I really hope they don't expand too much or too quickly. Food this good takes very careful monitoring, and there are only two Casellas to make sure. But for now, San Matteo has given the upper east side the kind of Italian food so often copied and raved about downtown and in Brooklyn of a kind that go on and off those endless lists. San Matteo should be around for a very long time.
SAN MATTEO PIZZERIA E CUCINA
559 Second Avenue
212-861-2434
Open daily for lunch and dinner.
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