Bacaro

"If you prefer squid ink pasta that slaps hard, go eat the spaghetti nero at Bacaro. It’s been on the menu ever since the restaurant opened in 2007 at 136 Division Street, near East Broadway, where Chinatown bumps into the Lower East Side. Bacaro’s subterranean dining room is one of the more memorable places to eat in the city; its stone, exposed brick, salvaged wood, antique chandeliers, and flickering candlelight conspire to create what essentially feels like a sexy medieval dungeon. The restaurant is owned by Kama Geary, who’s been there since the beginning and bought the business from the original chef and owner, Frank DeCarlo, in 2018. Bacaro is a Venetian-leaning restaurant, and, as DeCarlo told me when I spoke to him late last year, the spaghetti nero “is a dish of Venice.” It uses ink from cuttlefish (seppia), which are abundant in the Venetian lagoon. Rather than being worked into fresh pasta dough, the ink goes straight into a sauce that’s tossed with plain-old dried spaghetti." - Daniel Meyer