’s West Village neighborhood is often touted as its most romantic: the urban grid of concrete numbered avenues and streets slowly dissipates into a jumble of cobblestone ones with names like Grove, Charles, and Perry. Skyscrapers give way to 18th-century brownstones and mews houses—which, in the springtime, have blooms bursting from their flower boxes. Independent stores are more common than chain ones, and nearly restaurant feels like a quaint hole-in-the-wall (until you find out it has a Michelin Star and a Resy waitlist in the thousands).
So for those visiting the idyllic area—whose boundaries are roughly Hudson River to the west, 14th Street to the north, 7th Avenue to the east, and West Houston to the south—where to eat and shop? (You can’t really stay—there are no proper hotels in the neighborhood. ) Below, our favorite shops and restaurants in the West Village. Where to Eat On the corner of Bleecker and Grove Street sits I Sodi, a Tuscan restaurant with just 100 seats and a charming courtyard that looks out onto a row of brownstones.
(If 100 seats sounds small, its previous iteration around the corner had fewer than half of that.) They’re famous for their decadent, almost cake-like lasagna as well as their pappardelle with lemon. But when your waiter asks if you want to hear the specials.
.. listen up.
We’re still dreaming about the nettle pasta we had the other day. Via Carota is the sister restaurant to I Sodi—both are run by James Beard Award-winnin.
