The Four Horsemen is a wild card. You never know what to expect, but at least you know that much. It’s a wine bar doing wine bar food, which translates to a bit of everything.
Across the street in Williamsburg, sister restaurant I Cavallini is firmly Italian, but speaks in a dialect that takes some getting used to. Don’t come in search of carbonara or ossobuco. There’s nothing so garden variety here.
Instead, the restaurant adheres to the same fashionably seasonal and compulsively creative ethos of its older sibling, with a more focused approach (and twice as much seating). It’s a place to eat something cool, which—as you bathe in ambient music and drink a nebbiolo blend from a former musical instrument repairman—makes you, in turn, feel cool.
Like any self-respecting restaurant with wine bar tendencies, I Cavallini avoids dishes with names. Instead, items are offered as lists of ingredients, which come together in miraculous, or, at worst, fascinating ways. Fried eel toast, layered with pine nuts and golden raisins, hits you with crunch, fat, acidity, and sticky sweetness. A dish of fennel with plums and apricots is bolstered by mint and sharp pecorino. Tubes of glistening lamb sausage leak their juices over ripe cherries and avocado squash.
There are shades of Misi in the way the place deploys produce, but I Cavallini has more in common with genre-less spots like Bridges or Claud than it does with the rest of the Italian contingent. That’s important to keep that in mind, in order to calibrate expectations. This isn’t a rehash, or even a remix. Like The Four Horsemen, the place is fidgety, restless, and entirely uninterested in being uninteresting.
How to get into I Cavallini
I Cavallini releases reservations two weeks in advance at 8am. All of the bar and counter seats are saved for walk-ins, and, in our experience, you can also get a walk-in table during the first seating. The trick is, line up outside no later than 4:30pm. When the place opens at 5pm, you should be seated right away.
Food RundownFocaccia
Crunchy and oil-soaked, the focaccia is the most straightforward item on I Cavallini’s menu, and it’s a purely delicious crowd-pleaser. Get some whipped ricotta with every bite.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Mussel Panzenella
Kick things off with this vinegar-soaked bowl of jagged croutons and pickled tomatoes, with plump mussels hiding underneath.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Fried Eel Toast
Deep-fried eel encased in a puffy crust is exactly the sort of thing you come here for. The portion is small, but the flavors are not.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Trofie
Unskippable. These dense, chewy squiggles of pasta are loosely coated in coarse pesto, with whole pinenuts tossed in for a bit of mild crunch.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Gnocchetti Sardi
With its zolfini beans and knobs of shrimp, this is the most interesting pasta option—but it’s also the least essential. The broth leans watery, and tends to wash out the flavors.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Lamb Sausage
A beautiful dish that showcases what I Cavallini does best. The sausage is intensely fatty, balanced by the ripe cherries and tiles of mellow avocado squash.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Bluefin Tuna Belly
We once publicly stated that this dish didn’t need so much chervil gremolata. We were wrong. The tuna is so intensely fatty that it absolutely does. An interesting dish, but not a perfect one.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Honey Gelato
When it comes to dessert, this place keeps it simple, and that strategy pays dividends. If you’re lucky, there might be a scoop of honey gelato on the menu, wreathed by the ripest blackberries you’ve ever encountered. The melon sorbetto with salt and olive oil is another expert pick.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Tiramisu
If your favorite thing about tiramisu is the cream and mascarpone, you’ll love this version. If, on the other hand, you like a strong coffee flavor, consider one of the other incredible desserts.
photo credit: Kate Previte
Dining and Cooking