Pellegrino's

I don't understand restaurants like Pellegrino's. I don't get their appeal, I don't get their popularity, and I definitely don't get their 23 rating in Zagat's New York. Sure, it's nice to sit outside in an interesting part of New York's Little Italy. But we do really need to eat such mediocre food while doing it?

The problem with Pellegrino's is much the same as the much more upscale (and uptown) Grifone, where I dined in the fall. Simply put, the food is stuck in the mid 1950's - insipid, uninteresting, sugary pasta sauce, without that dark musk of garlic and onion that makes italian food italian, pasta on the very edge of bloated overdoneness, and main dishes that could be interesting, but in the hands of the Pellegrino kitchen, aren't. Veal with artichoke and mushroom, for example, sounds nice - it's not bad, I have to admit, though I'd like it a lot more if the meat hadn't gone an odd shade of gray. And as for the eggplant parmesan, I'm reasonably sure they got that eggplant the same place that the sub shop next door to my cambridge apartment gets theirs - what happened to fresh eggplant, salted, battered, and then fried in olive oil before being put in the oven with the sauce? The best part about Pellegrino's is that you can sit outside and plot where you're going to pick up some gelato for dessert. Otherwise, I'd skip this (admittedly reasonably priced) restaurant and shell out a little more money for Mario Batali's Lupa somewhat uptown, or for either Il Mulino or Batali's mainline restaurant, Babbo.