Babbo

Waverly Place, Pre-Dinner, and Why Babbo Still Sets the Tone

There is a particular quality to Greenwich Village on a weekday evening in late autumn, when the light drops early and the brownstones hold enough warmth to soften the edges of the street. Waverly Place at that hour, as the dinner crowd begins to move, is one of the more convincing arguments New York makes for itself. Babbo, at 110 Waverly, sits inside that mood rather than apart from it. The building's exterior gives little away; inside, the room operates at a register that has become rarer in contemporary New York dining: neither deconstructed minimalism nor deliberately rough-hewn osteria theatre, but a considered middle ground where the noise level stays high enough to signal life and the tables are close enough for the room to feel inhabited.

That atmosphere matters here because Babbo functions as one of the city's reference points for aperitivo culture at the serious Italian end of the spectrum. In Italy, the aperitivo hour is a structural part of the evening rather than a preamble to be rushed through. The practice of arriving before dinner with a glass of something dry and bitter, with small plates to anchor the conversation, has translated inconsistently to New York's Italian restaurants. At the tier Babbo occupies, ranked #269 in Opinionated About Dining's North America list for 2024 and rising from a Highly Recommended designation in 2023 to #269 in 2024, the expectation is that wine and food are integrated disciplines, not sequential afterthoughts. The restaurant's White Star recognition from Star Wine List, awarded in December 2021, places it in a smaller group of New York Italian addresses where the cellar is treated with the same seriousness as the menu.

Where Babbo Sits in New York's Italian Dining Tier

New York's Italian restaurant scene in 2025 spans an unusually wide range, from the neighbourhood trattoria format to multi-course modernist cooking that uses Italian cuisine as a framework rather than a destination. The serious mid-tier, where cooking is rigorously Italian in technique and sourcing without becoming self-consciously avant-garde, is where Babbo has consistently operated. The comparison set here is specific: Via Carota in the West Village works a different register, market-driven and deliberately simple, while Ai Fiori and Altro Paradiso each represent distinct positions within the same general Italian-leaning tier. Ammazzacaffè and Bad Roman address different parts of the Italian experience entirely.

What the Opinionated About Dining trajectory tells you, a three-year arc from Highly Recommended through #388 and then to #269, is that Babbo has continued to perform with the consistency that serious dining lists reward. OAD rankings are built from the surveys of experienced diners rather than anonymous inspectors, which means sustained placement reflects repeated return visits from people who eat at this level across multiple cities. That signals reliability rather than a single exceptional meal.

Within the broader American Italian dining conversation, the counterparts worth considering are not necessarily in New York. Emeril's in New Orleans operates within a different regional tradition, while internationally, 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Hong Kong and cenci in Kyoto represent how Italian cooking has been interpreted at a high level outside its home territory. The contrast makes Babbo's position clearer: it is operating within the tradition, not at a remove from it, which is a deliberate choice in a city where it would be easy to pivot toward fusion or modernist framing.

The Wine Program and the Aperitivo Entry Point

The Star Wine List White Star is a credential that applies to a wine program's depth and curation rather than its size. In New York Italian restaurants, the wine list is often where the seriousness of the operation is most legible: a cellar that takes regional Italian producers seriously, that offers both depth in the canonical appellations and genuine range across lesser-known regions, tells you something about the kitchen's priorities. Babbo's recognition in that system places it alongside a small group of New York restaurants where the list is worth arriving early to consider.

That is where the aperitivo argument comes together. Arriving at Babbo before dinner proper, in the earlier part of the evening, particularly on Wednesday through Friday when the kitchen runs until 10 or 10:30 pm, gives the evening a different pace than simply booking for dinner at 8. The ritual of settling into the room with something from the wine list before committing to the full menu is a more Italian approach to the meal, and it is one the restaurant's format accommodates. On weekends, the kitchen extends to 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday, with Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday closing at 9 pm, which means late-arriving bookings are feasible later in the week.

Chef Rob Zwirz and the Kitchen's Current Direction

Chef Rob Zwirz leads the kitchen at Babbo currently. Beyond that, the restaurant's long association with serious Italian-American cooking has established a kitchen culture that prioritises craft over novelty. In a city where Italian restaurants frequently reposition or pivot toward trendier formats, sustained OAD recognition over three consecutive years suggests the kitchen has maintained a coherent point of view under current leadership.

Planning Your Visit

Babbo is at 110 Waverly Place in Greenwich Village, a few minutes' walk from the West 4th Street subway station. The restaurant operates Monday and Tuesday from 4:30 to 9 pm, Wednesday and Thursday from 4:30 to 10 pm, Friday and Saturday from 4:30 to 10:30 pm, and Sunday from 4:30 to 9 pm. For visitors pairing the evening with the broader neighbourhood, the West Village and Greenwich Village together offer enough pre-dinner activity to make an early arrival worthwhile. The neighbourhood's density of wine bars and small Italian-leaning spots means the aperitivo hour before a Babbo reservation can be staged across the blocks between Christopher Street and the Village before settling in for dinner.

For planning the wider New York trip, EP Club covers the full range: see our full New York City restaurants guide, our full New York City hotels guide, our full New York City bars guide, our full New York City wineries guide, and our full New York City experiences guide. For reference points elsewhere in American fine dining, EP Club also covers Lazy Bear in San Francisco, Alinea in Chicago, Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg, The French Laundry in Napa, and Providence in Los Angeles.

What Should I Eat at Babbo?

Babbo's kitchen works within serious Italian-American culinary tradition, and the wine program, recognised with a White Star by Star Wine List, is central to the experience rather than incidental to it. Given the OAD ranking trajectory and the restaurant's positioning within New York's mid-to-upper Italian tier, the approach that makes most sense is to let the wine list guide the meal rather than treating it as secondary. Chef Rob Zwirz's kitchen has maintained consistent recognition across three OAD cycles, which suggests the menu's core dishes are the ones to stay with rather than seeking out speculative additions. Specific signature dishes are not listed in the available data, so asking the floor team for current kitchen priorities is the more reliable approach than arriving with a fixed list.