Since we moved from NYC to the DC area two years ago, my wife Jun and I had regularly visited our old hometown. Oftentimes, each NYC trip was for less than a full week, so we had to judiciously select the restaurants we would visit, essentially narrowing our choices to our top three favorites Atomix, Frevo and Aska most of the time. While we certainly don’t mind re-visiting these places and catching up with the people who work there that we know, I’ve occasionally come across new openings in New York that I thought could be worth our visit. You can obviously never go wrong with any restaurant under Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group and Ci Siamo, led by chef Hillary Sterling, was one place that was sort of on my radar after it opened during the pandemic era. On our recent trip to NYC during the Memorial Day, we finally decided to check out the restaurant for a brunch with another couple and found a lot to like about the straightforward yet well-executed Italian dishes.

Any meal at Ci Siamo must happen with cast iron focaccia with tomato conserva paste, and you will realize that the restaurant is not just another run-of-the-mill Italian restaurant that you see all the time in Manhattan. The seafood salad was a nice appetizer for a sunny outdoor brunch, too. Our friend, who had visited the restaurant before with her boyfriend, highly recommended the smoked carrots and it was indeed delicious with capers, oregano and feta cheese. My favorite dish from the appetizers we shared was caramelized onion torta with pecorino. It was wonderful with tons of flavor supported by delicate crust. If we hadn’t had an early dinner that day, I might’ve ventured to order another one!

Jun and I split two pastas together. Of the two, the cavatelli with crab was more successful (in part thanks to the slightly spicy kick from chili sauce) than the stracci with rabbit (is it just me that I can’t recall ever having a memorable pasta dish with rabbit in it?). The desserts at Ci Siamo were also solid. The lemon torta with olive oil gave the delightfully citrusy flavor of the sort that you could find in a very good key lime pie, and the somewhat deconstructed version of Basque cheesecake with strawberry and rhubarb was also an ideal pre-summer dessert to share with friends.      

Getting a dinner reservation at Ci Siamo based on my cursory look on Resy seems quite challenging, especially for prime time, unless you plan way in advance. On the other hand, the lunch/brunch reservation seems a lot more management even though the restaurant was almost packed by the time we were finished with our meal. Especially on a day with good weather like when we visited, I highly recommend dining al fresco in the outdoor space. The restaurant has a full bar with colorful cocktails and thoughtful Italian wine list that you could do well to complement with your meal. Ci Siamo is the type of place where you are likely to have a consistently good Italian meal with friends and family even if you likely have encountered some version of most of the dishes on the menu. It is another example of how much good execution and ingredient matter more than ever in Italian cuisine.

KenScale: 8.0/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.0/10)

Address: 440 West 33rd Street Suite #100, New York, NY 10001

Website: https://www.cisiamonyc.com/

Reservation via Resy