Bicchiere Wine & Pasta Bar

On our lists of the best wine bars and cozy restaurants in New York.

The team behind Madame Bonté, the Parisian-style café with three locations on the Upper East Side, turned this room on East 81st Street toward Northern Italian wine and food. The name means glass in Italian, and the menu backs it up with cicchetti, Venetian small plates like smoked salmon tarama and marinara-braised meatballs, next to bigoli, a thick pasta the kitchen makes fresh daily in seven preparations, cacio e pepe and a slow-cooked beef ragù among them. Seating is walk-in only, with no reservation line at all.