Alfresco

A Tavola

The dining room at A Tavola is dimly lit and intimate, with only ten tables, though there are 12 more out on the patio. The menu is equally tiny, so strict vegetarians may have a hard time making the most of it. I went with the halibut, lightly dusted with seasoned flour and panfried, accompanied by a lemon and caper sauce—very simple, but perfectly moist and light. An appetizer of grilled portobello and sauteed oyster mushrooms stood out for its surprisingly complex flavor. There are also pasta dishes, including the best gnocchi I’ve ever had, swimming in sage butter and topped with fried sage leaves. I’m one who believes there are few more wonderful things you can do with food than bake it with a crisp crust of Parmesan cheese, so the polenta may have been my favorite. There was one bite left at the end of the night, and I seriously thought about having it wrapped up. —David Wilcox

Owner Marty Fosse ran the front of the house at Spiaggia at one time, and while Anteprima is a far cry from that rarefied temple of la cucina Italiana, his neighborhood place has many virtues. A dozen or so antipasti lead the menu, which changes frequently. My table’s orders of orecchiette with lamb sausage and dandelion greens arrived merely warm and a little gummy, but an order of spaghetti with fava beans was damn near perfect. Main dishes include a brick-grilled baby chicken, New York strip, and wood-grilled rabbit. There’s a long, all-Italian wine list with plenty of quartino options and a decent selection of grappa and other digestives. Good luck scoring a table out on the lovely enclosed back patio. —Mike Sula

At Athena you’ll find old-world fare like loukaniko (homemade sausage), dolmades, lamb with artichokes in lemon sauce, and galaktobouriko, a faintly lemon-flavored custard that floats beneath several flaky layers of honey-soaked phyllo dough. The bright interior is spacious and colorful, but the big draw is the two-level outdoor garden, open spring to fall. Still, that’s not what keeps at least one customer coming. Someone who’s been dining here weekly since 1996, when the Tsoukalas family opened Athena, told me, “They make you feel comfortable, and that’s not true of all these Greek restaurants.” —Ryan Hubbard

The global-fusion-meets-contemporary-American menu at this sleek room is several cuts above bar food. An order of tempura-style green beans comes with a lime-ginger-soy dipping sauce; another successful fusion is the goat cheese wonton appetizer. There are pizzas with classic toppings, and sandwiches and salads with interesting twists, plus hearty entrees like an herb-marinated pork tenderloin served with garlic mashed potatoes. The several choices on tap include Delirium Tremens, and and there’s an outdoor patio that’s almost the size of the bar. —Laura Levy Shatkin

Unlike Paul Kahan’s other ventures (Blackbird, Avec, the Publican), Big Star is a bar. Both food (by Justin Large, formerly of Avec) and drink (by Michael Rubel of Violet Hour) are pitched to a very agreeable price point, making the place a surefire, low-cost, high-value good time. If you’re not in the mood for a well-engineered cocktail, you can slum it with a one-buck Schlitz shorty. Or if you just can’t decide between a mixed drink and beer, try a michelada—Tecate in a salt-rimmed glass, with tomato juice, lime, and house-made hot sauce. Either way, pop for a five-buck platter of guacamole with chips and drop an extra buck for chiles toreados, a small bowl of peppers with flavorful heat. The queso fundido is surpassingly wonderful. High-quality pork belly, lamb, and al pastor tacos are served on fresh house-made mini tortillas that make the big flavors seem almost dainty. The downside: there are only a few tables and they’re for parties of four or more, so smaller groups have to hover and pounce on just-vacated bar stools; the utilitarian patio, once a parking lot, is likewise always packed. But the carryout window is always an option. —David Hammond

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