Brooklyn already has enough Italian restaurants to make choosing between pasta dishes feel like a full-time job. Then Radisa Osteria arrived in Carroll Gardens and made the decision considerably harder.
Located at 241 Smith Street, Radisa focuses on the food of Emilia-Romagna and the Adriatic, serving handmade pastas, seafood, hearty Italian dishes and a wine list that leans heavily toward natural and low-intervention bottles.
The restaurant comes from a team with serious New York restaurant experience, including chef and owner Roberto Aita, beverage director Althea Codamon and general manager Fernando Trujillo. Their goal is a contemporary Italian osteria that feels polished without becoming precious.
Translation: come hungry, order pasta and don’t overthink it.
Among the dishes that have generated attention are the cappellacci with rabbit, tagliatelle al ragù Bolognese served with an extra portion of sauce—because apparently regular amounts of sauce are for amateurs—and spoia lorda, a traditional Romagnol pasta finished with bottarga.
There is plenty beyond pasta, too, including fried seafood, baccalà mantecato, tonnato and skate wing with brown butter, lemon and capers. In other words, this is not a restaurant where ordering vegetables is necessarily going to save you from eating everything else.
The atmosphere is another part of Radisa’s appeal. The restaurant has a darker, candlelit feel that makes it particularly suited to date nights, birthdays and lingering dinners.
And getting a table doesn’t necessarily require a 21-day strategic operation. Radisa says more than half of its tables and most bar seats are held for walk-ins, although reservations are available through Resy.
For anyone searching for Radisa Osteria, Carroll Gardens restaurants, Italian restaurants in Brooklyn or the best pasta in NYC, this is one neighborhood destination worth adding to the list.
Just remember: one pasta is never enough. That’s the first rule of Italian mathematics.
