Midtown Lunch

Manganaro’s, the 119-year old Hell’s Kitchen institution praised by the culinary Hunter S. Thompson himself, Tony Bourdain, closed recently to the lament of many an appreciator of fine red sauce cuisine. In its place rises not the balkanized nightmare of another generic deli, a former Yugoslavia-style breakup of food interests at war with itself by definition, but what we can only hope to be a united front against crappy pizza: Tavola.

The new owners have at least kept the old style woodwork intact, albeit painted over. If I recall correctly it could have used a new paint job anyway.  The workers I talked to only knew it was going to be an Italian restaurant, but some digging on the name turned up confirmation that it’s to be a brick-oven pizzeria. The interior “gutting” at least keeps some nice exposed brickwork and what appears to be the original ceiling. Hopefully the new establishment can maintain its pedigree and offer a decent alternative to the dollar-slice joints not too far away on 8th – who wants to pay more than a buck for a basic utility slice anyway?

If we’re lucky we may get a decent Roman-style pizzeria with amazingly thin crusts and toppings that are decent, but those tend to blow past the ML price limit if you want anything other than a pizza Margherita. No targeted opening date could be gleaned from the workmen or the building permits out front, but the signage already completed and a large number of simultaneous permits for varied projects leads us to believe it’s going to hit sooner rather than later.