From the pocket-sized, sultry Elvis in Nolita to the effortlessly chic Tabac-inspired wine bar Le Dive in Dimes Square, Golden Age Hospitality founder Jon Neidich has proven he’s fluid in French cool-factor. It flows through his repertoire of downtown restaurants and bars, including The Nines and Monsieur. And with the opening of Bar Bianchi, a Milanese-style aperitivo in the East Village, Neidich proves he can speak Italian It-boy, too.
Aperitivo is the quintessential Italian pastime of gathering at local bars and cafés over drinks and complimentary snacks (“spuntini”) in the evening. It comes from the word “aperire,” meaning to open one’s senses and appetite before dinner, and is part of the fabric of Italian culture. Having lived in Milano, I am fastidious about American restaurants serving aperitivi authentically, and arrived at Bar Bianchi as one of its first official patrons to see whether it would.
For an indoor-outdoor bar to really ooze Italian, the weather needs to cooperate. As the wet wind blew sideways down Avenue A on Bar Bianchi’s opening night, it was evident that the establishment would not have any balmy spring sun in its favor this evening. But between the good hospitality from my engaging server (a light-eyed blonde who was once a professional pool player), the Venetian plaster, and walls of green doors lined with hooks begging to be unlatched, it’s still got potential.
In lieu of a piazza bathed in the blush light of dusk, Bar Bianchi has the zippy corner of Avenue A and East Houston. Its al fresco dining tables, barren the night it opened to the public on May 6, are stationed under a long awning and a boldface Bar Bianchi sign that casts red and green neon onto the sidewalk. Inside, the restaurant checks the boxes of a Golden Hospitality hub. It falls somewhere between the picturesque daydream of a Wes Anderson shot (perhaps because it was inspired by Fondazione Prada’s Bar Luce in Milan, designed by the filmmaker) and the drippy velvet glow of Moulin Rouge (not just because Neidich’s last collaboration, Monsieur, was with Baz Luhrmann).
Reminiscent of 1920s and ‘30s Italian cafés with touches of modernism, Bar Bianchi was designed by Neidich, Golden’s creative director Andrea Johansson and longtime collaborator Sam Buffa, of The Nines and Frenchette. The diamond-checkerboard floor is made from handcrafted clay tiles imported from Italy. Custom millwork is evocative of charming, outdated Italian cafés untouched by time. The light fixtures shift between milky yellow space-age sconces salvaged in the Czech Republic and vintage Italian glass sculptural sconces. The sweeping space is anchored by the long zinc and Formica bar with an aged mirrored wall and an Art Deco canopy.
It’s clear from the many vintage bicycle posters and the bar’s namesake that Neidich’s first foray into Italian hospitality is also a nod to Bianchi, the Milan-based bicycle brand with an international cult following. Founded by Edoardo Bianchi in 1885, the brand was not only pivotal in the role bicycles played in Italian history, fostering Fausto Coppi’s wins in the 1947 Giro d’Italia and 1949 Tour de France, but also in bicycle mechanics as we know them today. The only missed opportunity to drive home the Bianchi theme was the shade of green selected for the interior—more pistachio than the celeste green that became Bianchi’s quintessential bike color, inspired by his lover Celeste’s favorite sea-foam hue.
The food and beverage menu is simple, straightforward Italian with a sizable selection of antipasti (ranging $7 to $24) for a seamless aperitivo. Should you make Bar Bianchi a dinner engagement, they also offer a few central Italian pasta dishes, such as cacio e pepe and pappardelle Bolognese, larger piatti (a $26 branzino, $32 steak tagliata or $76 veal Milanese for two) and desserts like affogato, tiramisú, gelato and a chocolate budino.
I went for aperitivo before a dinner reservation in Chelsea and opted for some classic, smaller bites. The prosciutto melone was a highlight. The execution of this dish relies solely on the quality of the prosciutto and the ripeness of the cantaloupe. If sourced well, like Bar Bianchi did, the deep, salty fabric of the aged pig melts into the juicy, sweet slices of melon and the flavors work their magic.
Another testament to sourcing was the tuna tonnato, which was shaved so thin and tenderly it was almost too difficult to pluck from the plate. It was covered in crispy fried capers and a creamy dijon sauce that was a little too heavy-handed; it eclipsed the carpaccio that was otherwise presentable.
The Caprese salad featured mozzarella made in-house daily. It was bright and fresh, with multi-colored cherry tomatoes, olive oil and basil leaves. It was also topped with two stewed tomatoes stripped of their skin. Bursting with sweet flavor, followed by a saturated salinity, my guess is they’re San Marzano. I wished there were more of them.
I also tried the piatti del giorno, a mushroom tortellini in brodo. I was excited to scoop up the pillows of pasta in a traditional capon broth as a cure to the chilly, rainy evening (and the assertive AC blasting inside). The tortellini pocketed the earthy mushroom filling beautifully, but the dish pivoted from tradition with a plated mushroom broth reduction instead of liquid broth in a shallow bowl.
Most of the food felt true to an Italian aperitivo format and, while not the meal of a lifetime, it is high quality, particularly for the pricing, and warrants a return. Being a bar focused on aperitivo, the drinks are half the equation here. Wines by the glass and bottle, as well as the cocktail list (consisting only of spritz, Negroni and three Bianchi classics), all stay within the confines of Italian borders. First and foremost, for me, is the Aperol Spritz. I ordered a large because it comes in a bubbly goblet that made me feel like I’d landed in the Navigli district of Milano. The drink had the ideal ratio of bitters to prosecco, served with an orange slice and Castelvetrano olive, just how I like it.
The defining benchmark for whether Bar Bianchi is truly an aperitivo came down to how the drink was served. Every restaurant in New York with “aperitivo” dusted in chalk across their café display sign has an immediate tell as to whether it’s authentic: olives. I don’t mean the type of marinated olives you order off the menu, but the kind served alongside your vino rosso or refreshingly biting Negroni—often with potato chips, and always on the house. To be honest, I secretly feel accosted by the American service industry when some Italian restaurant calls it aperitivo, and then doles out watery spritzes with no palate-whetting nibbles. In Italy, any aperitivo includes salt-flecked snacks to complement your drink of choice for just a few euros. It’s integral to this cultural tradition that is less about drinking and more about the social experience of opening the appetite before dinner.
At Bar Bianchi, the chips, served at no extra charge, were made in-house, waffle-knit with air pockets for extra crunch. The olives were plump Castelvetrano. There was nowhere to spit the pits, but the cultural accuracy was a win that positions Neidich for another victorious New York bar balancing authenticity and theatrical design. To solidify the success of Bar Bianchi, we’ll have to wait for the weather—once summer spills the crowd onto the street, sweating spuntini and sipping Aperol in the Golden Hospitality-induced glow of Italian etherealism.
