Tra di Noi is very popular as a family-style trattoria in the Bronx’s Arthur Avenue neighborhood.
John Mariani
The evolution of the so-called Arthur Avenue Little Italy in the Bronx, just west of the Botanical Gardens and the Zoo, goes on at an easy pace with newcomers taking over storefronts and old-timers staying put for decades upon decades. Mario’s, Enzo’s, San Gennaro, Roberto’s and Zero Otto Nove are the mainstays of a food culture now added to by Eastern Mediterranean restaurants like Gurra Café, Çka Ka Qëllu, Cakor and Avenue Gyro.
Owner Marco Coletta makes his cheesecake fresh several days a week at Tra di Noi
John Mariani
One of my enduring favorites, as much for its cordiality as for its superb Italian food, is Tra di Noi (“Between us”), where chef/owner Marco Coletta, from Abruzzo, offers an extensive blackboard menu (as well as a table menu) of dishes based on what he finds daily in the extensive markets in the neighborhood.
Soft shell crabs in white wine and lemon are a blackboard special at Tra di Noi.
John Mariani
Recently this meant he could obtain the fattest, sweetest softshell crabs I’ve had in ages, delicately sauteed tender in a velvety lemon-white wine sauce ($MP) I sopped up with a hunk of good Italian bread from a basket on the table. Other days the specials might include gnocchi with pesto ($ 24); swordfish Siciliana ($MP); lentil and escarole soup ($11); fusilli with fava beans or broccoli di rabe ($24); or hearty veal stew ($28).
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Spicy rigatoni all’amatriciana is an Abruzzese pasta at Tra di Noi.
John Mariani
A robust tomato sauce, both a marinara and meat ragù, is the key to any Italian kitchen’s individuality, and Coletta’s is deeply flavorful, intensely red and balanced in spices and olive oil, with the sweetness coming from the tomatoes themselves. It most delightfully appears in the Abruzzese pasta dish of rigatoni all’amatriciana ($22), studded with pieces of pancetta. It coats the generous portion of lasagne ($23) and tender beef braciola ($30 ) swims in it. If you like tripe, here it is cooked in that same sauce, Roman style ($24), while a rich lamb ragù is lavished on a potato gnocchi of just the right size, lightness and tenderness ($24).
Beyond the tomato sauces, there are so many good dishes on the regular menu, beginning with perfectly fried, crisp calamari ($17). Clams oreganato are not overstuffed with breading, leaving the meat to carry the flavor ($14). The linguine with vongole ($24) holds an abundance of the clams in their shell, the sauce rich with garlic and olive oil, while the fettuccine Carbonara ($23) is silky from beaten eggs and pancetta.
Linguine with congolese clams and gnocchi with marinara are rich pasta courses at Tra di Noi.
John Mariani
Among meat dishes there are fat pork chops with vinegar peppers ($30 ) and the best osso buco ($45) in the area, floating in a oat of chopped, simmered vegetables.
With main dishes you get nicely cooked white potatoes and green beans.
For dessert go with the cheesecake, which Marco makes fresh several times a week.
Tra di Noi is a pretty restaurant, with predictable but welcome décor of red checkered tablecloths, sturdy wooden chairs, a painted mural of Pavarotti to the rear and a window on the street. When you walk in (and reservations are necessary on weekends for both lunch and dinner), you’ll be happily greeted by manager Matilda, be presented with a bread basket and olive oil immediately and handed a slender, full of familiar labels and fairly tariffed. To the right will be Coletta, shelling fava beans, making the cheese cake batter, having his own lunch. He’s like a guiding presence throughout your meal.
The improvement in the restaurants along and flanking Arthur Avenue—which is easier to get to from Manhattan than it is to get through the congestion and traffic to go to the tourist-driven Little Italy downtown—has made it a destination where many will go for the traditional Italian-American food that is better done here than elsewhere, but at places like Tra di Noi there is always a surprise for those seeking a wide menu of personalized regional cooking.
TRA DI NOI
622 EAST 187TH STREET
BRONX, NY
718-295-1784
OPEN Tues.-Sun. for lunch and dinner.
Dining and Cooking