Embrace the pasta-bilities

Brush up on the classics: Bamonte's no-fuss cheese ravioli with tomato-meat sauce

Ravioli

Elementally, ravioli is just a thin sheet of sealed dough stuffed with cheese or meat. But this Italian mainstay travels to luxe heights at vaunted French restaurant Le Cirque (151 E. 58th St., 212-644-0202). The multi-starred eatery stuffs rich foie gras into plump, doughy pockets, which are then topped with green-cabbage marmalade and a black-truffle emulsion. For other unlikely delights, visit Mario Batali's Babbo (110 Waverly Pl., 212-777-0303), where steaming ravioli stuffed with supple beef cheeks are plated with crushed squab liver and fragrant black truffles.

If this is a tad too hoity-toity, instead venture to Astoria's Trattoria L'Incontro (21-76 31st St., 718-721-3532) for a sizable serving of ravioli brimming with ricotta cheese and crowned with garden-fresh basil, pecorino cheese and truffle-tinged tomatoes. Still, the quintessential throwback ravioli is located at Williamsburg's old-school red-sauce joint Bamonte's (32 Withers St., 718-384-8831). In a circa-1900 dining room adorned with chandeliers, cranky tuxedo-clad waiters deliver nearly Frisbee-size handmade cheese ravioli delicately painted with a gentle tomato-meat sauce that'll leave you begging for extra plate-sopping bread.


Gnudi

No matter how you spell or say it, gnudi (a.k.a. ignudi, nudi, malfatti, strozzapreti or just plain old "naked ravioli") looks best undressed. This Florentine masterpiece ditches ravioli's doughy jacket in favor of a bare look that finds the loosely formed fillings served solo. These lovely lumps are downright delicious, especially at Michael Psilakis' Mia Dona (206 E. 58th St., 212-750-8170). The gnudi are a grand assemblage of ricotta, mushrooms, truffle butter, sage and crispy speck, as adorable as they are addictive. Same goes for The Spotted Pig (314 W. 11th St., 212-620-0393), where chef April Bloomfield doles out hot rounds of sheep's milk ricotta gnudi, dusted in flour and semolina and fried in a brown-butter sauce and served with crispy sage leaves. (Call ahead to make sure they're serving it before you swing by: Nine times out of 10, it's there.)

Down at Batali's Italian temple Del Posto (85 Tenth Ave., 212-497-8090), start with a length of freshly baked bread spread with luscious lardo, before nabbing a plateful of the sheep's milk ricotta gnudi, which is baked and served with Swiss chard ragu and fonduta. The gnudi master, however, might be Iacopo Falai. At his Lower East Side eatery, Falai (68 Clinton St., 212-253-1960), the chef-owner's cloud-like mixture of ricotta cheese and baby spinach are tinged with nutmeg, plated in a buttery pool and, for a final artistic touch, topped with a frothy cap of cappuccino foam.


MORE PASTA: LASAGNA, GNOCCHI, SPAGHETTI —>


Photo by Michael Harlan Turkell