Pete Wells Says Misi Serves Great Vegetables, Awarding It 3 Stars

Chef Missy Robbins landed yet another review today for her pasta-centric restaurant Misi — this time a far more glowing one from Times critic Pete Wells, who crowned the Williamsburg Italian hit with three stars.

While most of the buzz since the restaurant’s debut has focused on Robbins’ pasta making, Wells says that Misi should instead be viewed as “a pasta-vegetables-and-gelato” restaurant, placing equal emphasis on the menu’s “impressive” veggie dishes as on the pastas.

On the vegetable portion the menu, he finds a roasted globe eggplant flavored with Calabrian chiles and lemon juice that’s “soft” and “easy to spread as cream cheese.” The pickled chanterelles are “fleshy and firm,” and the panzanella made with grilled bread, capers, and fresh oregano comes with “tender” olive oil-poached chunks of zucchini. And the “gently roasted” tomatoes, now gone for the season, are dusted with fennel and coriander seeds, plus a “last-minute squirt” of spicy honey. That last dish is an example of how the chef uses few ingredients in “ways you don’t quite expect,” he writes.

Misi’s pasta also gets some attention: Wells particularly praises its texture, saying Robbins makes sure the pasta is cooked thick, with “body and heft.” It’s a texture that straddles undercooked and cooked. Three stars.

It’s a rosy review that contrasts Eater critic Ryan Sutton’s take earlier on Tuesday. He awarded Misi one single star, saying “the noodles range from serviceable — like a forgettable pappardelle with chickpeas — to nearly disastrous — an oppressively saline bowl of fish sauce-laced linguine.” He too commended the vegetables but found that it didn’t match up to her success at Lilia.

• Misi Is Much More Than a Pasta Restaurant [NYT]