On one of my previous Foods of New York tour, they brought us to The Little Owl, a small non-de-script tenement building made famous by the Friends TV show, and also just highly recommended as a great place to eat.
As you can see from the picture below, there were heaps of people being shown the same famous building, though it didn’t really detract from our overall dining experience.
We were really lucky, turning up shortly after midday, and only being told a table wait would be about a half hour. I was a bit worried since it was a really popular restaurant with only 28 people and reservations generally recommended. They did mention they reserve some tables for walk-ins, and we were lucky enough to nab one. We walked around the area for a bit, before returning for a short five minute wait before being seated.
There’s not a lot of room for movement, and with my back turned to the rest of the restaurant found my chair constantly niggled, either by the patrons leaving and going, or the waitress coming and going as well. It’s your typical, NY tight style seating where people were almost sitting on top of each other.
The menu is pretty interesting, definitely inspired by the Mediterranean but brought up to American standards with items such as the burgers, and their famous gravy meatball slides that I had to order.
My sister order the bacon cheese burger (US$16) that came with a series of condiments.
As you can see, it was a pretty big burger, served with melting american, bright yellow cheese, and then the pickles and salad sitting on the plate.
I ordered two appetisers opting for the crunchy artichoke heart (US$15) and the gravy meatball sliders (US$12). The artichoke was served with a light, lemon black pepper parmesan broth and some tasty green rocket leaves. Superbly crunchy and a delicious combination.
The sliders, or mini-burgers were rightfully famous. Each was moist, juicy and packed full of flavour. The meat combo was a mince of beef, pork and veal and then topped with grated pecorino and then topped with a bit of sauce to keep it really moist.
We also shared a side of mushrooms served with truffled breadcrumbs (US$6), a delicious rich, but probably not needed accompaniment.
To finish off the meal, we split the beignets served with raspberry sauce and nutella (US$9) that were beautifully made super fresh. The raspberry sauce brought a good level of tartness to the dish and the nutella, an additional richness to the dish. I definitely enjoyed the food overall. Everything was very well made and service overall very good – water topped up all the time and we didn’t ever feel rushed to be moved off our table. Highly recommended! Total price with tax, tip (no alcoholic drinks) for two people was US$77.41.
Name: The Little Owl
Found at: 90 Bedford Street, New York, New York
Website: http://www.thelittleowlnyc.com/