Squid Ink Pasta at Bacaro That Has No Squid Ink in the Pasta | Eater NY
"Tucked into a subterranean dining room at 136 Division Street, near East Broadway, this Venetian-leaning spot feels like a sexy medieval dungeon with stone, exposed brick, salvaged wood, antique chandeliers, and flickering candlelight. The spaghetti nero—on the menu since the restaurant opened in 2007 and now run by Kama Geary, who bought it from Frank DeCarlo in 2018—is made the Venetian way: cuttlefish ink (seppia) goes straight into a sauce that’s tossed with plain dried spaghetti rather than into the pasta dough. I watched Victor Jimenez cook it; after sautéing a single cuttlefish for less than a minute, he sweats shallots, garlic, chile flakes, and oregano, adds white wine, two small ladles of tomato sauce, a splash of vegetable stock and a few basil leaves, then stirs in less than a teaspoon of ink until it’s murky black; a small handful of Grana Padano is folded in and the spaghetti swims in the sauce until barely al dente, the cuttlefish placed on top and finished with a drizzle of olive oil—seven minutes start to finish. DeCarlo was right that it’s “pretty much the easiest dish you could do,” and the ink in the sauce packs far more punch than when worked into dough: the dish has a brininess that skates right up to the edge of salty, gloriously toothy pasta, and a sauce that is at once luxurious from the ink and comfortingly tomato-oregano–forward, oddly reminiscent of a New York slice; the lone cuttlefish exists only to get out of the way of noodles that are “the same texture as mac and cheese” if you’re blindfolded. I’ve been eating it for over a decade, and my favorite way to finish the leftovers is standing at the kitchen counter with a glass of bourbon on the side." - Daniel Meyer
