Nightlife Powerhouse Tao Jumps Into Roman Food Game With New Chelsea Restaurant

More Roman food is coming to NYC. The Post reports that Tao Group is partnering with the Moxy Chelsea hotel and the team behind Italian restaurant Antica Pesa to open Feroce Ristorante and Bar Feroce.

Located at at 105 West 28th St., near Sixth Avenue, the main-floor restaurant Feroce Ristorante will serve regional Italian fare from throughout the country, like pappardelle al cinghiale, a pasta served with wild boar shoulder and sausage ragu, according to the Moxy website. It comes from Tao Group and Francesco Panella of Antica Pesa, which has locations in Rome and Brooklyn.

While the restaurant will serve food from throughout Italy, the second-floor space Bar Feroce will serve bar snacks and takes on Roman comfort food alongside classic cocktails. Dishes include a croissant filled with prosciutto di Parma and provola cheese; there will also be pizzas.

The Post also notes that Bar Feroce will have a year-round backyard space at the hotel that will serve pizzas and feature outdoor games. It wouldn’t, after all, be a Moxy bar without games: The millennial-pandering hotel chain opened a bar with a half-sized basketball court and skee-ball in the Financial District in October, and the Times Square location of Moxy features a rooftop bar with a miniature putt-putt course.

The space for Bar Feroce was designed by the prolific firm the Rockwell Group, which is behind other flashy cocktail spots around the city like Tao Downtown, Moxy Times Square, Nobu, Untitled, and the new Seaport District rooftop space R17.

Panella’s Antica Pesa debuted in NYC in 2012, and at the time, the New Yorker noted that it served quality but overpriced Roman food. Since then, Roman restaurants have proliferated in the city, including openings in the past year like La Rossa, Leonelli Taberna, and Camillo. With Feroce, Panella will branch out to other regions of Italy in addition to serving some Roman dishes.

Both Bar Feroce and Feroce Ristorante open in March, according to a spokesperson. Stay tuned for more.

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