It’s been close to two years since I visited Danny Meyer’s Midtown pizzeria Marta headed by chef Nick Anderer. I visited this place a couple of times and the last visit turned out to be fantastic with some truly memorable dishes such as potato carbonara pizza and lam chops. With a friend visiting from out of town and looking for a leisurely Friday lunch, I figured a re-visit was in order given the proximity of this restaurant from my office. Overall, Marta is still going strong and I’ve had a pleasant lunch.
Before you move forward with pizzas, I suggest sharing at least a couple of appetizers. Marta mista salad consisting of romaine, artichokes and pickled peppers had a little bit too much red wine vinaigrette in it although the vegetables themselves were fresh. On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed the warm chicken meatballs, which replaced the rabbit meatballs I had tried last time, with black olives and ricotta that would serve as an excellent starter to get you ready before the pizzas start coming in. The pizzas at Marta have thin crust so they won’t overpower you with too much carb, which is certainly a good thing. Even if the pies look fairly large, two pies for a party of three (which is the number of party during this lunch) are perfectly workable.
The potato carbonara pizza was almost as good as I had remembered, with the egg at the center serving as a nice icing on the cake that brings something extra to the pie. One of my dining companions noted she previously had an off-menu black truffle pizza with her friend visiting from out of town a couple of weeks ago that she really enjoyed, so we figured we should try it again. It doesn’t come cheap (at $36), but the addition of black truffle to an otherwise simple-looking pizza definitely brought a ton of rich flavor to the pie that was so addictive that it was hard for all of us to stop at some point after devouring it. For dessert, tiramisu ice cream sandwich turned out to be the winner, as we all enjoyed the delightful but not overly sweet touch of the simple sandwich.
The buzz at Marta since its opening in 2014 has largely seemed to be gone, but the dining space was still nearly packed with a lot of young crowd looking for casual lunch on Friday before greeting the weekend. As with all Danny Meyer establishments, Marta completely removed tipping from the bills. Whenever I have a lunch appointment in Midtown Manhattan, Marta will always be one of my options I’ll remember going forward; you certainly can’t go wrong with thin-crust pizzas that are prepared with solid execution.
KenScale: 8.0/10
- Creativity: 8.0/10
- Execution: 8.0/10
- Ingredients: 7.5/10
- Flavor: 8.5/10
- Texture: 8.0/10
Address: 29 East 29th Street, New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (212) 651-3800
Website: http://www.martamanhattan.com/
