Cecchi's
There is no martini on the menu and almost everyone is drinking one. Order it with the onion rings and the steak frites.
Why go
Michael Cecchi works his own room on West 13th Street, and The Infatuation describes the effect as a deliberate rewind: If you plopped the West Village restaurant into 1980s Midtown, it would raise, at most, an eyebrow or two.
The menu is written in that register, chicken à la king beside onion rings and pigs in a blanket stuffed with Italian sausage, in what Bryan Kim calls the tradition of other apostrophed clubhouses like Sardi's and Elaine's.
What holds it together is the front of house. Kim's closing note is that there are no gimmicks, just stiff white tablecloths, properly stirred drinks, and old-school hospitality.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the martini, then the onion rings, then the steak frites, which the review singles out with the instruction "Don't get cute. Stick to the basics." Mushroom toast if you want a third thing.
- Avoid: the ribs and coleslaw. Kim's verdict is that "it's kind of charming how mediocre they are."
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation (6 October 2023, 7.7):
There's no martini on the menu, but most people drink one. That's the main activity at Cecchi's. Eating is a semi-distant second.
1 - Local rec: Jeff's note credits Michael Ruhlman, who has written repeatedly about these onion rings.
Good to know
- Timing: dinner and after, and it runs late enough to be a post-theater room.
- Booking: book a table, or take a chrome stool at the bar, which is where the martini belongs.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Order: Onion rings and martinis
- Rec via: Ruhlman rec
- Note: Onion rings and martinis. Ruhlman rec
Verdict
could-visit — A room where the drinking is the point and the kitchen knows it. Bryan Kim's review says there is no martini on the menu, most people drink one anyway, and eating is a semi-distant second, which is either damning or exactly what you came for. The menu is a deliberate throwback, chicken a la king next to onion rings, mushroom toast and pigs in a blanket stuffed with Italian sausage, and the advice from the review is to not get cute and take the steak frites. Michael Cecchi works his own floor. Jeff's note names the onion rings and the martini and nothing else, which turns out to be the entire correct order. It sits at could-visit because the food is competent by the only critic on file, and because that critic went in October 2023 and nobody has been back in print since.