Met a friend for lunch at Pagani —Massimo Lusardi’s newly opened restaurant, converted from the old Pagani Bros. music store. What a delicious lunchtime special bargain of $14.50 for a soup or salad plus a sandwich.
We split two flavorful Italian-accented vegetable-focused salads and sandwiches. I recommend both the shredded kale salad, with currants, shredded endive and pine nuts in a refreshing lemon vinaigrette and the unusual white salad with Brussels spout leaves, chopped endive, sliced mushrooms, shaved fennel and baby artichokes topped with Parmigiana Reggiano slices. Each could have been a light lunch!
Sandwiches, served with a lightly dressed mesclun salad, were also good yet had a tad too much pesto for me. My dining partner loved the abundance of the basil blend. One contained mozzarella slices, tomatoes and lots of shredded arugula on pesto-spread Italian bread; the other an amalgam of freshly cooked squash and eggplant, with sliced red onions on pesto-spread 7-grain bread.
A quartino of the smooth Armani 2012, Trentino Sauvignon Blanc ($13.5) worked well with everything. The wine had some tropical fruit and minerality, but considerably less than ones from New Zealand.
I do recommend heading to the West Village and visiting Pagani.
– bonnie
Pagani
West Village: Cross street Seventh Avenue
289 Bleecker Street New York, NY 10014
Cross Street: 7th Avenue South
(212) 488-5800
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