Nicoletta, the Altamarea Group's homage to Chef Michael White's favorite childhood dish (hint: pizza), has closed its dining room on Second Avenue at 10th Street.
Signage points to a new spot somewhere else in the East Village, where they'll continue on, though only via delivery... and no word just yet where the new Nicoletta will live...
For now, though, Nicoletta fans can still order their pizzas for delivery.
The new EV space will also feature new menu items, per their Instagram, and an expanded delivery zone. (Do you remember when they first started, and their delivery zone was: First Avenue to Third Avenue, and Ninth Street to 11th Street?)
Nicoletta opened to SO Much Hoopla in June 2012, including 90-minute waits for tables.
I don't recall anyone saying that the pizza was all that good. Pete Wells was Real Meh on it in an August 2012 review at the Times in which he bestowed the pizzeria 0 stars.
Per Pete:
Nicoletta’s pizzas are not quite deep dish, but they are heading in that direction. The crust is as strong as epoxy, and Mr. White piles it up with an abundance of toppings that would buckle an ordinary pie. In thickness and heft, a Nicoletta pizza resembles the September issue of Vogue.
There was another reason my table never finished an entire pizza: we lost interest. The style of pizza Mr. White is pursuing emphasizes gut-stretching abundance over flavor. The pies are overburdened conglomerations of cheese, flour and fistfuls of other stuff; in the end, the elements cancel one another out.
And the salads?
The salad recipes might have been nabbed from that corner trattoria you stopped going to a few years ago. There is the Nicoletta, with lettuce, red endive and a sliver of focaccia smeared with goat cheese. Or the insalata mare with clams, mussels, squid and octopus, all as tender as an extension cord, all bathed in a dressing that had no effect on any of it.
A look at the EVG archives and our 4568799000223323 posts about the place shows that some readers were tuned off by Nicoletta's T.G.I. Fridaysish interior and corporate vibe and the clipboard-toting host staff standing guard by the door while keeping tabs on those early line waiters.
By August 2013, Eater put Nicoletta on its Deathwatch.
Anyway, Nicoletta has been able to move past all this, enough to relocate to a smaller spot for delivery at least amid more and more competition. How many high-profile pizzerias have opened since Nicoletta arrived? In the last 12 months alone we've had Joe & Pat's, Emmy Squared, Sauce and Sorbillo Pizzeria, to name a few.
Thanks to Steven for the photos!
