Dining and Shopping at Giovanni Rana in New York City
Last week, I had the great pleasure of dining at a charming and delicious Italian restaurant located in Chelsea Market in New York City. Giovanni Rana is Italy’s renowned producer of fresh pasta for more than 50 years and they recently opened Giovanni Rana Pastificio & Cucina, a fabulous pasta kitchen and market, featuring fresh pasta made on-site daily in a glass-enclosed Pasta Studio. The 140-seat restaurant is quite cozy and is decorated eclectically with vintage cooking tools. The ever-changing menu features antipasti, pasta dishes, salads, main courses, and desserts. Customers can also buy pasta to cook themselves or have something prepared fresh to take away. There is also a selection of regional Italian products from which to choose. I was so impressed with my dinner there last Thursday that I returned Giovanni Rana on Saturday to share the experience with my granddaughter, Jude. Antonella Rana, the owner, explained to me, "The restaurant isn't just a business for me. It is the mirror of my family, of our passion, of our fifty years of heritage: I created and designed it trying to transfer our love for food and conviviality, pleasure of sharing good feelings around a table as in Italy we are used to doing daily."
1 Janice Lau - AVP Merchandising, Kevin Sharkey, and Jeanie Park - VP Merchandising all enjoyed an evening out on the town after a very busy design week at MSLO.
2 Lisa Wagner - SVP, Supervising Editorial Producer and Jerry Haggerty - SVP, Merchandising - JCP - It happened to be Jerry's birthday.
3 David Ong - Deputy Design Director and Jessica Rounds - Deputy Design Director for Textiles enjoyed a night of eating and celebrating.
4 Dan Grossman - Deputy Design Director, me, and Aaron Stewart - VP, Design - Aaron arranged the entire dinner with the owner of this great Italian restaurant, Antonella Rana.
5 Giovanni Rana is the father-in-law of Antonella Rana, the beautiful owner of this new New York establishment. There are 30 restaurants in Italy, pasta factories in several cities, including Chicago and New York.
6 We were served about six different pastas, all family-style. They were all different and quite delicious and I ate a bit of each of them. This is Bolognese and carbonara.
7 A very unusual dish - calamari and paccheri, a calamari shaped pasta in a rich, red sauce
8 A very delicious salad - Pane Carasau, Burrata, Ricotta, Olives, Hazelnut, Beet, and Spinach
9 This was polenta sticks with a mascarpone dip - very yummy!
10 A rustic board of Il Tagliere - Artisanal Cured Sliced Meats and Italian Cheeses served with Gnocco Fritto, a delicious fried bread
11 Fritto Misto di Pesci - shrimp, calamari, spinach, and lemon
12 My favorite - Stuffed artichoke hearts stuffed with bread, crumby pesto, and fried with thyme.
13 Another delicious mixed salad
14 A beautiful presentation of cheese ravioli and goat cheese served in a crispy basket of parmigiano reggiano. The basket is made by baking a 12-inch disk of grated cheese on a silicone baking sheet. When the cheese is melted, remove it from the oven, wait a few minutes, then lift and place the disk in a metal bowl to form the basket.
15 At the end of our very large meal, Jerry was presented with a birthday cake and one candle!
16 A dessert called Cassata, made with fresh ricotta, pistacios, pine nuts, candied orange peel topped with the finest chocolate from Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, served on a handthrown ceramic dish handcrafted locally in Astoria in Queens, NY.
17 Two days later, I went back to Rana to photograph the restaurant in the daytime. Kevin and I took Jude, who loved every dish we put before her. She loved walking around and looking at everything, as I did. Here is the pasta counter with many kinds of freshly made pasta.
18 Squid ink pasta, tortellini, and ravioli - mushroom, cheese, meat, butternut squash, and others
19 Beet, potato, semolina, and spinach pasta - Rana makes 500-pounds of pasta a day! Pastas are flavored with ingredients like chiles, curry, and cuttlefish ink and one is made with lentil flour.
20 Tomato, chestnut, curry, whole wheat, and artichoke - all these flavors are found in the pasta display.
21 And there are all shapes of fresh pastas - fusilli, paparadelle, fettuccine, rigatoni, gnocchi, etc.
22 Beautiful noodles
23 Tagliatelle and pappardelle - each to be served with a special sauce
24 The special proscuitto slicer is, of course, Italian.
25 Each serving is freshly sliced, expertly, on this machine.
26 The dining room looks very different in the daytime.
27 It was very crowded in the restaurant during the day and also very crowded in the evening - a great sign!
28 Wooden shelves display unusual Italian-made specialties for sale.
29 The owner, Antonella Rana, is a very beautiful and vivacious mother of two from Verona (born in Sicily). She is so creative and certainly knows her Italian recipes.
30 She gave Jude a sheet of pasta and tools to experiment with.
31 There is a cutter, a ravioli crimper, a round ravioli crimper, and a heart-shaped cutter.
32 While we waited for lunch, Jude tried all of them.
33 She was intrigued with the pasta tools.
34 Pressing the heart to make a cutout was hard, but not impossible.
35 All Jude needed was some butternut squash filling to make a round ravioli.
36 From the restaurant and shop, diners can look right into the kitchens and the Pasta Studio.
37 Kevin ordered a poached egg made in a jar and served with cheese, toast, and roasted fingerling potatoes.
38 Scrambled eggs were served with toast, cheese, and proscuitto.
39 Jude ordered little tomatoes, olives, and burrata cheese drizzled with aged Balsamic vinegar.
40 The fried bread is served in an Italian-made copper basin.
41 This is a giant raviolo filled with soft polenta and topped with a fried egg and little woodland mushrooms.
42 Kevin had whole wheat rigatoni with tomato sauce and a soft and creamy cheese.
43 The pumpkin ravioli were delicious.
44 The cappuccino was very excellent, also.
45 This was everyone's favorite - pandoro, a traditional Italian sweet yeast bread, sliced crosswise and cooked like French toast. It was really, really delicious and Jude adored it!
46 Garnished with raspberries, black raspberries, and pomegranate seeds - I'll be making this soon!
47 These special cookies are served with dessert. They're called krumiri, a delicacy of Casale Monferrato, the city in north-west Italy where they were invented in 1878 by the confectioner Domenico Rossi.
48 The logo of the company is painted on a rustic brick wall.
49 This is imported flour ready to be transformed into pasta.
50 Copper is for sale, as well as homemade olive oil, pottery, linens, salt, etc.
51 This is an original dough maker from the pasta factory in Verona.
52 This machine is not used for dough any longer, but it's a great display vehicle for Italian-made chocolates.
53 The new pasta machinery is custom designed and makes all types of dough, as well as many extruded and rolled shapes of pasta.
54 The process is very, very efficient.
55 This is fusilli being extruded neatly onto sheet trays.
56 Perfectly formed pasta!
57 The store displays old tools and implements.
58 This is an assortment of old cutting wheels for the pastas.
59 A large ceiling rack holds many pieces of copper.
60 Old grinders and colanders
61 There are big sacks of flour for making pasta and for baking on shelves near the entrance.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
Martha,
What fun to have dinner and lunch with your co-workers and Jude. Jude is so adorable. The food looks yummy! Thanks for sharing this blog.
Posted by: KLBrown | January 29th, 2013 at 2:01 am
Looks like it was amazing food!
Posted by: Holiday Baker Man | January 29th, 2013 at 3:31 am
What great photos of pasta making.! Jude seems to have that interest in cutting dough with interesting cutters that most children enjoy. Ethan loves cutting knox blocks and is an easy treat when time is limited.
Posted by: ann | January 29th, 2013 at 5:50 am
Looks like a wonderful Italian restaurant. Food looks so delicious!
Posted by: Lisa | January 29th, 2013 at 6:01 am
Martha, I think there is nothing better than discovering something new that's so enjoyable that we want to return to experience it with loved ones.
The food from both your visits to Giovnni Rana Pastificio and Cucina look so yummy, especially the pandoro! Please share the recipe when you make this delicious looking dessert!
Posted by: Cindy F | January 29th, 2013 at 7:08 am
The pastas are amazing, and motivate me to try my hand! We need to make gluten free pasta, which is a little more challenging (due to our daughter's Celiac); however, I will try!
Posted by: nantucketdaffodil | January 29th, 2013 at 8:48 am
Hi Martha, Thanks so much for taking us to this delightful Dinning and Shopping place, Giovani Rana in New York City, twice! It's easy to see that you, Kevin, and others enjoyed being there and that is such a neat place that also sells products and foods that you can eat later at home! How great to see some of your employees including Kevin, Lisa Wagner, and birthday boy Jerry Haggerty, and others on your Thursday dinner! You look so cute in photo # 4 and the foods looked delicious, yummmy!! Sure would be fun to go there so I will add it to my list of places to visit someday! My favorite part of this blog was you and Kevin taking darling Jude to tour and eat there! She sure did love all of those great foods and certainly enjoyed touring all our that restaurant! Was also fun to see the owner, Antonella Rana! She looked so happy with her job just like you do with your fantastic job!! Loved seeing your tweet yesterday about having a party with 75 of your great employees who have been with you for 10+ years-awesome! I also thank you again for yesterdays blog about the Animal Specialty Center-that was also awesome! My prayers continue for you and your animals! Hope you have another great day! Jan
Posted by: Jan Erickson | January 29th, 2013 at 9:21 am
Hi Martha,
If Jude doesn’t grow up to be some kind of cook, I’ll be surprised. She has two great teachers, you and Alexis! I am so impressed with some of the dishes Alexis cooks for her at home, and Jude likes them too. I don’t think a lot of parents take the time to prepare such healthy meals for their kids but I’m only going by the example of my niece. I have tried to get through to her about a healthier eating style and I even make your recipes and take them over there, but they still eat a tremendous amount of fattening foods. Any cookbooks just sit around and collect dust. Thanks for introducing us to this fabulous Italian restaurant. It is places such as these that make me wish I lived in New York. I am sure we have restaurants that make their own pasta but I haven’t been to any. The closest I get to fresh pasta is tortellini in the grocery stores. That crispy basket of Parmigiano reggiano reminds me of the chocolate tuille cookies you used to make on your Martha Stewart Living show. You wrapped them around something rounded and they would dry that way. Thanks for making me hungry for Italian. I will hunt down some fresh pasta somewhere, probably Whole Foods, and maybe I’ll make my own simple sauce. Trish
Posted by: Trish | January 29th, 2013 at 9:56 am
Hi Martha,
Giovani Rana looks like a gem of a find in NYC. The pastas are works of art. And the crispy basket of parmiagano reggiano -- yum, yum, yum. And little Jude - what a cutie pie she is. Thank you for sharing. I just love your blog. By the way, how was your dinner last night with people who have been with your company for 10 years or more? 75 people! That's an accomplishment in this day and age. Maybe it's a generational thing but working for a company for more than a couple years these days is an anomoly ... or so I read about or even see at my company. So the fact that these people have been with you for at least a decade is wonderful! Congratulations!
Happy Tuesday!
Lisa
Posted by: Lisa Gordon-Miller | January 29th, 2013 at 10:02 am
Hi Martha
I loved to know Giovani Rana, an artist in the art of making pasta. His story is very beautiful and the way he and his staff creat is amazing. In short, I loved. Thank you for the opportunity.
Malú
Posted by: Maria Lúcia | January 29th, 2013 at 10:46 am
Wow looks like an amazing place and delicious food. Love the photos, Jude's pics are soo adorable
Posted by: Rowaida Flayhan | January 29th, 2013 at 12:36 pm
What a wonderful place! Looks like Jude has acquired a sophisticated palette for her young age...what fun it is to watch little people enjoying good food.
Posted by: sherey | January 29th, 2013 at 12:40 pm
I will check it out! Lovely blog!
Posted by: Teresa Touey | January 29th, 2013 at 1:20 pm
Z jeden Polski kobieta ktory cieszl sle Wloch zywnosc! So happy to hear you enjoyed the Rana restaurant at the Chelsea Market. We have been American parents to our Italian daughter who was an exchange student almost 30 years. She is currently the PR young woman for Rana and has kept us abreast of Rana's success. We were present at the grand opening and were immediately taken by the quality of food, th tmosphere of the restaurant, and the genuine sis of Giovani and his wife, family, and staff. We will once gain visit Rana in the spring when Candida returns.
Posted by: Barbara Zonkowska Beyer | January 29th, 2013 at 6:44 pm
This restaurant looks great! I also love the pictures of Jude enjoying the food. What an adorable child! Thanks for sharing your experience there, Martha.
Angela
Posted by: Angela | January 29th, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Salivating - it all looks so delicious! I've noted the spot for my next trip to NYC, thanks for the introduction! (Through the years, you have introduced me to most of my favourite spots in NYC!) Thanks so much for the continued sharing of your wonderful finds.
Posted by: Whitney | January 29th, 2013 at 9:38 pm
That was fun - love their appreciation of their heritage.
Posted by: Karen | January 30th, 2013 at 9:38 am
I see Jude enjoys a good business lunch already start them early the future of mslo I guess Truman could'nt make it .
How does that sharky person stay so thin eating like that.
cheers
Posted by: tom | January 30th, 2013 at 10:31 am
We missed you there by one week! I LOVE Giovanni Rana. We enjoyed the trio of spreads for the crusty bread, the delicious parmesean pasta bowl, the charcuterie plate and delicious cocktails. Highly recommend!
Posted by: Tara | January 30th, 2013 at 11:56 am
Love NY love them pastas , enjoy !!
Posted by: Iulian Cristea | February 4th, 2013 at 2:37 am