What’s your favorite restaurant?
For years while I was living and eating in downtown New York, my favorite restaurant was Mappamondo on Abingdon Square. An unpretentious, 14-table Italian joint manned by slick-haired guys in shiny shirts and pointy shoes, Mappamondo (unlike most other restaurants in the Village at that pre-“Sex and the City” time) catered to hungry locals, not cocktail-starved bridge- and-tunnelers.
It was across the street from my fourth-floor walk-up apartment with the rattly windows, the first place I’d lived that wasn’t in Alphabet City. On the way over you’d cross Hudson Street, the Empire State Building to the north, the twin towers to the south. The Bus Stop Diner would be packed with all-day breakfasters, and the New Opera Deli would be briskly selling gerber daisies, mortadella sandwiches and bottled ginseng root. Weary-eyed club kids and Prada-shod architects would fight you for sidewalk space. You’d jaywalk, dodging the taxis that always took that Bleecker Street corner way too fast.
I had a favorite table at Mappamondo (second in from the window) and a favorite dish (black-and-white pasta with spicy tomato sauce). Sometimes I’d have a salad (mixed greens). Always a glass (or bottle) of the “house” chianti, which changed from year to year but was always good enough.
Dinner at Mappamondo was never more than $15, which meant that I could afford to go up to twice a month, sometimes with friends, but more often alone. I’d stare at the maps on the walls and study the couples at the other tables while I slurped my noodles, just spicy enough to warrant another glass of chianti.
The food at Mappamondo was simple, not sophisticated. Foodies thought it pedestrian. The plates were chipped and the chairs wobbled. The tablecloths were stained with sauce and olive oil. Once my friend Wayne found one of those walking-stick bugs that looks like a twig, alive, in his tricolore salad.
But Mappamondo was comfortable, easy, close by. It was the place I took out-of-towners, co-workers, first dates and best friends. It was my place.
After a while, I stopped going to Mappamondo. My palate was growing impatient, and I started to believe that there must be better meals farther afield. There must a chicer bistro, a more acclaimed cafe, a more expensive plate of pasta that I should be eating instead. Surely Mappamondo couldn’t be the greenest patch of culinary grass in Manhattan. It couldn’t possibly be my favorite restaurant. That would be too easy.
Besides, what would people think of me?
So instead I overspent my income in more fabulous places. I went for steak frites at Odeon and agnolotti at Bar Pitti and sashimi at Blue Ribbon; I went to all the places that you were supposed to go. I was seduced by these restaurants, because they were wonderful.
But I was never at home.
Soon enough, Mappamondo was gone. I didn’t even know they’d closed until I saw a new sign hanging over the doorway, looking like another one of those ubiquitous ‘tini and tapas bars that slammed New York so hard in the 90s. I stopped short that afternoon, breath caught, confused. Maybe Mappamondo had just gotten up and wandered down the block. I could go get it and bring it back.
But Mappamondo was gone.
I miss Mappamondo like a lost friend from summer camp. But Mappamondo remains in my brain because it made me love restaurants. Not because it was the best or most acclaimed restaurant in town. Certainly not because it was well-reviewed or popular with foodies. I loved Mappamondo, and it loved me back, because it was mine.
These days, I am a different man in a different city at a different time, and I have new favorite restaurants. Some are humble, some are grand, some are boring. But you can bet I’ll be hanging onto them. Tightly.
What’s your favorite restaurant? Wherever it is, go pay it a visit. Maybe even tonight.
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-820-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
