Restaurant Week – Winter 2015: Bar Primi

Our second Restaurant Week stop was with some friends at Bar Primi.

Bar Primi is run by Chefs Andrew Carmellini and Sal Lamboglia with Josh Pickard and Luke Ostrom of NoHo Hospitality Group, who also run Locanda Verde, The Dutch, Lafayette, Little Park (where we will be excitedly heading in 2 weeks) among others.

Here’s the 2015 Winter Restaurant Week Menu:

I started with the Grilled Octopus with Fingerling Potatoes (sans red hots).  It was a beautiful tentacle that was pretty tasty.  It was lightly sauced so it really focused on the great octopus flavor.  While I enjoyed it, I still have the bar set by Kefi, which is the best octopus I’ve ever had, so everything else pales in comparison, unfortunately.

I was the only one of the four of us who stuck to the Restaurant Week menu, and while I had 0 regrets, I was glad the rest of the table ordered off the menu so I could try a bunch of things, having never been to Bar Primi.

So the table started with the truffled mushroom crustino.  This was incredibly tasty and bursting with flavor.  The bread was just the right amount of crisp to bring it all together.

The table also ordered the stuffed mushrooms in sugo (which, sadly, had red peppers in it).

Here is an inside view, and everyone raved that they were very tasty.

We also got Sal’s Antipasti Salad for the table.  This was nicely flavored, however, I was expecting a bit more antipasti components.  My bites were mostly lettuce and chick peas and not much more.

For dinner, I chose the Strozzpreti from the Restaurant Week menu which has a mushroom marsala ragu.  I usually shy away from a dish without meat, but I didn’t miss the meat at all in this dish.  The pasta tasted like really amazing, gourmet macaroni and cheese with a hugely flavorful mushroom sauce.  I was so impressed with how much flavor they packed into this little pasta dish. And the pasta itself tasted incredibly fresh and was perfectly cooked.

Others around the table tried the Bucatini with Lamb Amatriciana, which they all loved.

And the Fusilli Napoletan with Nonna’s Veal Genovese, which they all also loved.

And the Friday special, lobster oreganata with linguine pangrattato. This tasted similar to a classic scampi dish and the lobster was great with it.

For dessert, we tried the Chocolate Hazelnut Torta off the Restaurant Week menu.  This looked like it was going to be dry, but the flavor was really fantastic and a great way to end the meal.

We also got a piece of tiramisu, and while it looked very melty, it was quite good.

I was VERY impressed with the Bar Primi Restaurant Week dishes I tried.  If I had only that, I would absolutely want to go back and try more, and was grateful to be able to try additional components with my fellow diners.  I will absolutely be revisiting Bar Primi, even after Restaurant Week is over. A very enjoyable restaurant.

Total Nom Points: 8 out of 10

Tags: 2015 restaurant week, bar primi, bar primi for restaurant week, bar primi restaurant week menu, bucatini, chocolate hazelnut torta, fusilli, lobster oreganata, marsala mushroom sauce, nyc restaurant week, octopus, restaurant review, restaurant week, restaurants, Strozzpreti, stuffed meatballs, tiramisu, truffle, truffled mushroom crustino