Welcome to Red Sauce America, our coast-to-coast celebration of old-school Italian-American restaurants.
By night the vibe at Tribeca’s Sole di Capri is romantico-rustico with staid white tablecloths and cloth napkins. But at lunchtime the place transforms, like Lady Gaga taking off her makeup, into something even more resplendent. The tablecloths are replaced by worn-in flannel-backed vinyl covers, printed with a photo-realistic trompe l’oeil of a picnic table strewn with bowls of bland-looking orecchiette and fusilli pasta, accented by the occasional lost red onion or errant head of broccoli. Some tables are covered in cheeses, others in a riot of baguettes and ciabatta loaves that has been described by guests as “fantastic” and “so strange.”
Eduardo Erazo, Sole di Capri’s owner of 13 years, told me that his wife found the one-of-a-kind coverings in a town in Northern Italy on their last trip there three years ago—they came from large rolls, which are then cut to size. She was particularly drawn to the coverings decorated in pastas and cheeses. “The bread is too cute.” The coverings have a global fan base, Erazo said. “Tourists come in from France and Italy, and they ask if they can buy them.”
Sole di Capri’s placemats are only on view at lunch—at dinner they change to white tablecloths.
Photo by Cole Wilson
Dining and Cooking