Family owned and operated for over a decade, the menu offers classic Italian dishes that are fabulous! From the service to the ambiance this is a unique gem hidden within Hells Kitchen. The food is inventive and interesting enough to keep me engaged and their wine is good enough for a casual evening meal to have me returning. Nevertheless, I've decided to now make ViceVersa my go-to spot in Hell's Kitchen for elegant Italian food in a comfortable setting. For drinks, bottles of wine are available but their selection is a little meager for true gems under $60. They were beautifully roasted head-on with rich roe spilling out of the crustaceans.

I also tried one of their Pesce dishes - roasted red prawns with lemon, braised escarole, rosemary. The pasta was black from the squid ink, with a distinct iodine-y flavor from the sea, and the accoutrements framed the dish perfectly.

We also tried a squid ink seafood ravioli with calamari, plum tomato, black olives. A strozzapreti with slowly roasted duck ragout, Gaeta`s olives, parsley was heavenly, not overly greasy, with tender duck meat. But the food is heavenly.Įvery visit I've paid to ViceVersa has involved pasta of some sort. The servers, friendly, and a bit enthusiastic.

The dining room is elegant, dimly lit, and spacious. In a neighborhood where the food options are all Thai and Mexican, ViceVersa breathes life into the Hell's Kitchen dining scene. However, maybe because we ordered their 'cheap' menu, all dishes were rather unremarkable and uninspired.įinally, an elegant Italian place in Hell's Kitchen. I was born and raised in Italy (until 25 years), and can cook, so I don't get easily impressed with Italian food unless I see more creativity and eagerness to impress. The price fix didn't give many options, and I feel that for $38 I could have eaten more interesting food elsewhere. Overall, I don't have specific complains, other than I wasn't impressed with any of the dishes. Then we had their beef short rib, which was very tender… a sizable portion of meat over some tasty fresh pasta. The food came fast, and so did the waiter pressuring us to ask for the check.įor appetizers we had their cotechino with lentils and pasta e fagioli. I just paid a visit to this establishment for dinner, and went for their Restaurant Week price fix menu (although I realized they have a $38 price fix menu year round). IMO there are plenty of better places to try in the same area. I'd say we were out of the restaurant by 8:20PM (so much for a special occasion). We didn't do dessert and the check was brought to us immediately. Not within a minute of finishing was our table bused. The food itself was very good, but the whole experience was rushed. It came out so quick, that it was actually suspicious how fast it came out (was this something just sitting under a heat lamp?). We both ordered pasta dishes, no appetizers. The restaurant was pretty empty, minus a few tables, on a Saturday night. We only ordered water, and you could tell he was a bit peeved. We sat in the back and our waiter gave us the dinner and drink menus. The interior of the restaurant is beautiful and modern and they have outdoor seating both in the front of the restaurant and a secluded outdoor section in the back. We got to the restaurant a little bit early at 7:50 and the host took us to our seats. I booked a reservation for 8PM for a special occasion dinner. So the meal had a lot going for it, and a few missteps. Although very tasty, I would have liked it a little lighter, with a slightly more bitter chocolate taste. Lastly, one of us got the chocolate mousse. I was worried there might be too much sour, but that didn't happen to this dish.

Two of us got the panna cotta which had wonderful vanilla tones, light delicate texture, and a sour cherry sauce, that enhanced the dish. The pumpkin ravioli dish was also very well done, but I prefer this dish with a less sweet squash such as acorn or butternut. The cookie was doing more for texture than for taste. I was happy that the raison was way in the background, but I would have liked a little more amaretti taste. Al dente pasta, classic sage butter sauce make this a can't miss dish. The casoncelli are pasta packets stuffed with veal, raison, amaretti cookies, in a sage butter pancetta sauce. For the entree course, two of us got the casoncelli and the other member of our group got the pumpkin ravioli. However, the first two salads were too heavily salted. All dishes had fresh ingredients that played well off each other. The third was buffalo mozzarella, beefsteak tomatoes, and roasted bell peppers. The second was spinach, pancetta, almonds, pecorino cheese, and mustard dressing. The first was romaine salad with speck, apples, walnuts, and gorgonzola cheese. Three of us came for a restaurant week lunch.

Vice versa nyc restaurant week menu