Asellina

Asellina is the trendy new Italian restaurant on the ground floor of the Park Avenue Gansevoort hotel. I noticed Asellina was participating in NYC Restaurant Week. After going to nycgo.com to confirm Asellina's restaurant week menu offered dishes I would want to try, I thought this would be the perfect start to NYC Restaurant Week.



Cool metal light fixtures with dim light bulbs run the length of the dining room. Throughout the meal, Asellina played music from every genre. When we walked in, the Beatles "Can't Buy Me Love" was playing, when our apps came out, Janet Jackson was singing "Rhythm National" and by the end of the meal, Etta James serenaded us with "At Last".



Within seconds of being seated, the busboy presented us with soft Italian bread and olive oil. Looking over the restaurant week menu, we had a difficult time choosing what to eat because there were so many good choices. Our waitress was attentive and handled our order flip flopping with a smile.



Before we ordered off of the restaurant week menu, we took a peek at the regular menu. We found a ton of great choices (like flatbreads and pizzas) that were not featured on the restaurant week menu. But at $35/person for an app, entree and dessert, (over 30% off of the regular menu), we couldn't pass up the restaurant week deal.



What to eat:



We started with Asellina's veal meatballs, which were laying on top of a bowl of tomato sauce. But not just plain old tomato sauce! Asellina melts a sharp goat cheese into the tomato sauce, creating a heavy, cheesy tomato sauce. Definitely ask for extra bread to finish off the sauce.



The presentation of each dish was gorgeous (my pictures do not do Asellina's handiwork justice).

Also, Assellina's steak is a must. The skirt steak is prepared with a simple rosemary and pepper seasoning, highlighting the quality of the meat.

The hazelnut semifreddo. I'm not a hazelnut person but this is a dessert anyone will enjoy. The semifreddo has an ice cream cake like consistency and is accompanied by a scoop of espresso gelato.


The only complaint was that our desserts came out with the gelato half melted. When we brought this to our server's attention, she immediately apologized, took away the dessert and brought out a new dessert.













This is a NYC Restaurant Week MUST.




Insider tip: Wine is half price on Sundays :)



Have you made your restaurant week reservations yet? I have,



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