Pete the Pasta Lover Gives Two Sparklers to All'onda

This week, Pete Wells reviews All'Onda, the new Union Square Italian restaurant from Jeffrey Chodorow, chef Chris Jaeckle, and consultant Chris Cannon. He doesn't like the tortellini in brodo, the chocolate tart with soy gelato, or the lumache with duck. But the critic finds a lot of winners on the menu, including the bucattini with urchin:

Sea urchin pasta is so popular now, it will probably turn up on the menu at the Olive Garden before the year is over, but Mr. Jaeckle has done something novel and delicious with it. The urchin is cold-smoked, which makes it something like briny bacon and, when folded into egg yolks, cream and garlic, makes the rest of the dish something like spaghetti carbonara from the deep. The first time I had it, the bucatini were too soft and doughy, but the next time they had the proper snap to offset their creamy sauce.

Wells describes the restaurant as "late-period Chodorow, with the nightclub grandiosity stripped away," and he's happy to see Chris Cannon back on the floor. As Eater readers predicted, Wells gives the restaurant gets two sparklers.
· A Gondola, Bobbing Toward Japan [NYT]
· All Coverage of All'onda [~ENY~]

All'onda

22 E. 13th St., New York, NY