Del Posto Review: Four star lunch in New York City
Pursue your passion. That’s what we always tell the kids. I think I’m finally understanding that type of message in my thirties. You get to this point where basically even if your job is fine, but if you don’t love the type of work, Monday mornings is just like meh. It’s not like when you hate your job, and I’ve done that before where I hated my job so much and went from making money to washing dishes. So when you really hate it, you do something. When you begrudgingly do it, you trudge along. I think when you do that, you miss out on excellence. The kind of excellence you can get at lunch at Del Posto. For $39, Del Posto represents the best four-star dining experience for either the average New Yorker or for a tourist.
The first time that Steph and I ate lunch at Del Posto, the price was ten dollars less than the current $39. It was a deal then and it still is a fantastic deal now. The bread basket hasn’t changed much since we last visited, but that’s because it was already awesome. Warm delicious bread with lardo AND butter spread. It’s almost a crime not to carb load.
For the starter, I got the Vitello tonnato. The description was ‘Olive Crostone, Caper Shoots, Lime Cells and Lemon Basil’. I had no idea this dish contained meat, much less veal because I had no idea what the hell vitello meant. I ordered it because the other starter/appetizers either sounded too rabbit food-y or required a supplement. Homey don’t play supplements. Actually we could for something else… This dish is a cold dish and it was refreshing and nice for the summer. There were some crunchy elements to the dish that was really pleasant since the veal was sliced thinly and very soft.
Steph got the Insalata Estiva della Terra. It was actually a really pretty dish but my camera sucks now and I couldn’t get a good view of it. It was like a summer garden on a plate with some fresh cheese as accompaniment. She really enjoyed it but I would still pick the veal dish over it because I’m one of those people that has that thing where when I go eat at a restaurant, I want a dead animal on my plate. Maybe it’s backwards, primitive, and environmentally unfriendly, but this is ‘Murica, after all.
So back to the supplement thing. You can add a pasta supplement, but it has to be the same pasta for the entire table and the supplement is per person. So I guess it can be worth it for some, and we were celebrating Steph’s conquering of the job market. Unemployment 0, Steph 1. So we got the supplement and carb loaded.
For our main courses, I picked the lamb, and Steph wanted the lamb but since she didn’t want to order the same thing, she got the chicken. While she really liked her chicken, we both thought the lamb dish was a bit better. This was another case of, ‘Just order what you want no matter what anyone else at the table is doing, even if it’s your wife/husband.’ I really believe in that rule. Even though you might run into a situation when both of you order something bad… but at Del Posto? You should just get what you want because it’s going to be good no matter what. It’s just a matter of how good and what you’re feeling like.
The food at Del Posto was just wonderful, and for the quality and price, it was really really worth it. I’m sure the executive chef loves his job or at least loves cooking. I think it’s slightly depressing if you can’t reach your own 4-star level just because you picked an industry only for its rent-paying purposes. Unless you’re one of those who just maximizes your earning no matter the field and you’re an all-star… I mean, in NYC, how many career line cooks are there at like age 60 who works in a stellar kitchen? Doesn’t the cream rise to the top and the rest fall by the wayside? It’s easy in a hard industry to weed out the ones who aren’t so into it. In many 9-to-5 type of jobs, you can just bullshit yourway to 65-years-old. Those Mondays though… fuck they are hard.
Del Posto85 10th Ave.New York, NY 10011212-497-8090
Posted by Danny on July 29, 2014 at 12:31 pm
After two months of being a parent, I can say that it doesn’t get any easier! The food blogging pretty much has stopped but it’s nice to take… [more]
0 comments
April 1, 2016 at 2:26 am 
I am a dad now! It’s only been about a month, and it’s as surreal to write that now was it was when my son first came into the world. Being… [more]
2 comments
February 29, 2016 at 2:27 am 
For the food loving couple that’s hobbled by the exclamation of, “I’m getting too old for this,” there’s some usefulness in food courts…. [more]
0 comments
January 10, 2016 at 1:12 am 
When the semester cycles to an end, my brain basically cannot fit everything all in, and that’s why the blog has really suffered. My plan for the… [more]
0 comments
December 31, 2015 at 8:39 pm 
The other day wifey and I woke up at 3 am and took the train into the city. Weather had not yet turned cold. It wasn’t the kind of wind that would… [more]
0 comments
November 30, 2015 at 9:54 pm