San Sabino

The much-anticipated, seafood-focused follow up to hit Italian-American restaurant Don Angie.

Note: now that I’m back from my spectacular food tour of Western Europe, the reviews will be coming more slowly. I won’t be dining at fantastic restaurants every night. I do have a backlog of reviews of a few places I’m dying to write about, such as this one, so those will be coming once or twice a week until I go to new places here in NYC.

If you know me personally, you know I love Don Angie. It’s not just my favorite restaurant in my neighborhood, but my favorite restaurant in all of NYC — and quite possibly the world. I seize a reservation whenever I see one pop up (which is rare); I’ve celebrated my birthday there; I take out-of-towners there; I even have a print of the storefront framed in my kitchen (a gift from my fiancé). Why? Well, to put it simply, it knows what it wants to be and do, and it is and does that perfectly. It’s like Carbone but less pretentious and more creative. (Both West Village restaurants are near-impossible to reserve; both had one Michelin star and lost it in 2022; both pride themselves on their Italian-American cuisine; both have an oft-instagrammed famous pasta dish—don’t get me wrong, I like Carbone and think it’s worth some of its hype, but Don Angie is just better.) Their lasagna for two is one of my all time favorite things I’ve ever eaten—and I don’t usually care for lasagna. But the best menu item might be their somewhat overlooked “tonnato vitello,” which inverts the traditional Italian dish and eschews tuna sauce for spicy veal tartare prepared with a touch of anchovy-caper aioli, carta di musica, and celery, blanketed by a thin layer of the freshest tuna carpaccio. It’s a perfect dish, and an original one.

But I digress. I’m not here to talk about Don Angie, but its seafood-focused follow up, San Sabino, which is right next door on Greenwich Avenue. It opened in March and I’m lucky enough to have been twice. The first time, about two weeks after it opened, I walked there at 4 pm (thanks, freelance writer lifestyle) and was first in line to stand outside in the rain (they graciously presented us troopers with samples of an apple cider mocktail around 4:45) and got a walk-in table when they opened at 5. The second time, in late June, God smiled on me and I somehow got a Resy alert for an 8 pm table on a Friday.

A server told me that San Sabino came about because of a bittersweet problem that Chefs Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli were having at Don Angie: they had so many devoted fans and excited newcomers that they felt they could never change the menu. (I, for one, would be devastated if I showed up and discovered that the lasagna, the tonnato vitello, or the tiramisu (the only iteration of that dish I’ve ever loved) had been stricken from the menu.) But they had been so successful in crafting delicious dishes and wanted the opportunity to experiment with other Italian-American creations, especially seafood, and thus San Sabino was born.

After two meals there, I can confidently say it’s one of my top five restaurants in New York. With my fiancé’s help, I’ve tried the nduja-stuffed mussels, cheesy frittelle, spicy tuna tartare, lobster triangoli, manicottini with mini meatballs, pepperoni carbonara, linguine alle vongole, potato crochette, caramelized key lime crespelle, and gelato Viennese. And there’s not a single skip among them.

First, appetizers. The mussels, stuffed with nduja rice, were enhanced by a lemon aioli; a lovely mix of textures and flavors. The cheesy frittelle were comforting and satisfying, drizzled with orange blossom honey that provided a lovely contrast to the hot, cheesy, fried base. I can never get enough raw tuna, so I’ve had many a tuna tartare by now, and it’s rare that one is original enough to stand out; San Sabino’s did just that. Served with broken arancini and a creamy scallion sauce, it has the perfect amount of spice, and the rice provides a carbiness and a warmth that contrasts nicely with the cool tuna while dovetailing with the heat of the spice. It’s like an Italian take on the ubiquitous spicy tuna with crispy rice. (This was one of the dishes that merited a repeat order between the two visits.)

Now for the highlight of any Italian or Italian-American restaurant: the pastas. The lobster triangoli was far and away my favorite. I love lobster and, say it with me, I love pasta, but despite this, I rarely am impressed by lobster ravioli. This dish might have forced me to change my tune. It’s filled with tender chunks of lobster rather than any kind of overly chopped paste (shudder), and it’s covered in the most velvety, rich white vodka sauce. (I’m still not sure what that is; it tastes like the best vodka sauce I’ve ever had, so I think it must have tomatoes in it, but why is it white? Help!) The other repeatable pasta was the manicottini with mini meatballs. Echoing some of the flavors of Don Angie’s famous lasagna (ricotta, red sauce, flavorful ground meat), it was comforting and satisfying and as Italian-American as it gets. I was excited to try the pepperoni carbonara—what a fun twist on a classic Italian dish, and that’s what Rito and Tacinelli do best—but it wasn’t my favorite. It had the tingly bite of Szechuan peppercorn, which made it interesting and almost cacio e pepe-esque, but it somehow lacked the richness I crave in a carbonara. The linguine alle vongole was good but not particularly special; it was pretty much just a well-executed classic. Still, this is simply a matter of what we liked versus what we loved. At any other restaurant, this could be a top dish; the bar has just been set so high.

The potato crochette were completely unnecessary given that we didn’t order any protein focused mains, but when the server described them as “like fancy tater tots,” there was no going back. Indeed, these deep fried minced potatoes were cheesy and crispy and smoky and so delicious, like an Italian twist on fast food. I may have to break my primi-only rule next time I go back just so I have a good excuse to have them again, maybe as a side for steak. Indeed, if I am really a restaurant reviewer worth my salt, I may have to order a secondi in the form of the shrimp parm with sweet and sour sauce, an unlikely dish that I must admit does not sound wholly appealing but has been making the social media rounds as San Sabino’s star dish.

For desserts, we tried the key lime crespelle, which was interesting — tart and sweet and crispy with a gooey center. But our favorite was the gelato Viennese: basically a fancy ice cream cake, with a cake that had deep chocolate and espresso and hazelnut and caramel flavors that melded so nicely and were complemented by the coolness of the gelato.

San Sabino has managed to do the unthinkable: live up to the impossibly high expectations set by the spectacular Don Angie. It’s almost an extension of the original, albeit with a seafood focus; both boast playful, original, yet homey and satisfying Italian-American dishes.

TL;DR: WHAT WE ATE

Loved: spicy tuna, lobster triangoli, manicottini with mini meatballs, potato crochette, gelato Viennese

Liked: stuffed mussels, cheesy frittelle, pasta alle vongole, pepperoni carbonara, key lime crespelle

Should have skipped: nada