The doughboys were marching home from World War I when Monte’s Italian Restaurant opened in 1918. It’s still doing business on Macdougal Street in the heart of Greenwich Village, and its menu heading still rings true: It reads, “Monte’s of Greenwich Village (since 1918) where you will find a friendly and cozy atmosphere, superb homemade pasta, and seafood specialties. One of the best Italian restaurants in the Village.”
That says it all. Monte’s, the quintessential Italian Villager, is a snug, walk-down spot with white table cloths, old-fashioned lighting fixtures, and photographs of family, friends, customers, and celebrities. Wineglasses hang above the convivial bar up front; the Italian waiters (who auction off the dishes) harbor that wonderful combination of warmth and gruffness. Owner Giovanni Mosconi greets customers like they’re old friends—don’t be
surprised if he kisses you on both cheeks as you depart—and many of the appetizer portions are the size of other restaurants’ entrées.
Monte’s is, in short, an “old school” Italian restaurant with a welcoming staff, a long menu, modest prices, and an Old World spirit. Its patrons are cosseted from the frenetic, humming summer crowds that sometimes sprawl off the sidewalks onto Macdougal Street. The new fabled comedy clubs and falafel eateries come and go, but Monte’s remains in an admirable time warp, a monument to a gentler past, an oasis for people who seek the reassurances of the familiar. It is as it was when I first visited in the mid-1960s.
The traditional menu lists 23 pasta dishes (starting at $9.50), 8 chicken choices, 10 veal possibilities, 13 seafood selections, 12 daily specials (one or two daily), 7 broiled options, and 12 specialties of the house—all of which come with spaghetti, a good green salad or a vegetable and potatoes.
There are also 18 appetizers, 6 soups, 10 salads, 6 vegetable side dishes, and 15 desserts. This vast array includes just about every Italian oldie imaginable, including baked clams, fried calamari, hot and cold antipastos, minestrone, polenta, lasagna, gnocchi, manicotti, osso buco, scaloppinis, parmigianas, Marsalas, cacciatores, zabaglione, tiramisu, and rum cake.
The most outstanding dishes sampled at a recent dinner were the tried-and-true standard-bearers: housemade, flavor-filled lasagna; soft, fall-from-the-bone osso buco on a bed of rice; tender, tangy veal piccata; and—even better—veal scaloppini Bolognese.
Although baked mussels and spinach soup starters were just ordinary, the fresh, crouton-dotted Caesar salad was extraordinary, and the ice cream-centered desserts, like peach Melba, tartufo, and an ice cream/pear/whipped cream/chocolate syrup concoction, were fun—as is Monte’s itself.
97 Macdougal St. at Bleecker St., 212-228-9194
Richard J. Scholem is a former contributor of restaurant reviews for the Long Island Section of The New York Times.
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