THIS RESTAURANT HAS CHANGED LOCATIONS Bar Italia

THIS RESTAURANT HAS CHANGED LOCATIONS Bar Italia Restaurant Review:

Bar Italia feels like it belongs on South Beach. The pastas and main dishes are inventive, the outdoor seating feels private, and the indoors is a sexy white temple of singles and locals sharing a private secret. The scoop is that a former chef from Cipriani, the charming chef Denis Franceschini, has imported his Italian cuisine to the Upper East Side. Behind an unassuming name of Bar Italia, the menu and service sizzle. Specials like an artichoke salad delicately dressed with a lemon vinaigrette or a branzino so fresh that a heavy sauce would have been tragic round out any of the dozen pastas presented. What is billed as a traditional fish soup is a hearty meal of salmon, scallops and other choice seafood. Bar Italia also offers tasting platters of cheeses or charcuterie. Each meal begins with an apéritif of cranberry juice and prosecco, distinctively claret-colored to stand out against the whiteness of the restaurant. We applaud the restaurant-cum-club feeling of Bar Italia, set among the many small eateries along Second Avenue.