Less Is More: The Meatball Shop

The Meatball Shop in NYC, just opened in the heart of the party district on the Lower East Side.

With a 40-minute wait on a Sunday night, the feeding at The Meatball Shop, a neo-retro Lower East Sider dressed in vintage photos and meat-grinder parts, is so frenzied it feels Pavlovian. Say “meatball” in this town, and everyone’s inner child comes out noshing.

The Meatball Shop in NYC, just opened in the heart of the party district on the Lower East Side.

This meatball specialist on the Lower East Side offers the signature fare in a half-dozen flavors and all sorts of permutations: with one of four sauces in a bowl, on variously sized sandwiches, over pasta or even over a side of vegetables or salad. Best is the spicy pork with the spicy meat sauce or the mushroom-rich vegetable ball with the mushroom gravy. A homemade ice cream sandwich for dessert might be an even better reason to stop in, though

84 Stanton Street (Allen Street), Lower East Side, (212) 982-8895,

themeatballshop.com.

If you're into the brioche, a more substantial option is the Smash—two meatballs of your choice, with sauce and cheese (either provolone or mozzarella from Connecticut's Calabro). It's a big, filling sandwich for $8, though by the time it hits your table—more than 40 minutes, in our case, on a weekday afternoon—the sauces have already started to soak into the brioche bun, and three minutes later, that bottom half may have liquified entirely. Your better bet?

Any of the six meatballs can be ordered in their purest form—four balls to a dish, smothered in sauce, served with a slice of focaccia ($7). Of the six options on offer, the classic beef, spicy pork, and chicken are your best bets.

As good-looking as it is cosmetically predictable, The Meatball Shop has already attracted crowds both daytime and night, and it's been written up in New York, Time Out, and twice in the Times—but not a single one of those writeups told how the meatballs actually, well, tasted.

From one red wall stares down a family of photos—black-and-white portraits of mustached and bouffant-ed individuals who could be someone's Italian great-grandparents. All those hard surfaces (plus a lively bar) make for one mighty din, even at mid-afternoon on a weekday.

When you've had your fill of meatballs, there's a short and equally customizable dessert list—cookies, ice cream, and the two stuck together. On either side of a scoop of salty, creamy caramel ice cream—an almost-as-delicious version of Otto's salted caramel, and that's high praise indeed—they made for one of the best ice cream sandwiches ($4) we've had in recent memory.

It’s particularly zingy bathed in the spicy meat sauce. The mushroom gravy paired satisfyingly with the mushroomy vegetable balls, but the Parmesan cream sauce clashed with everything.

Forgo the pasty white beans, oversteamed broccoli, and undercooked polenta (each $4), and enjoy a brisk baby arugula and apple salad on the side ($4).

It’ll cleanse your palate nicely, but not nearly as nicely as the homemade mint ice cream. Wedged between nutty brownie cookies

Such is the case with The Meatball Shop, opened recently on Stanton Street. Co-owners Michael Chernow (general manager, formerly of Frank in the East Village) and Daniel Holzman (executive chef, former co-owner and exec chef at San Francisco's SPQR), have built a menu based entirely around meatballs—on top of spaghetti, on top of polenta, as heros or as sliders.*

There's beer and wine, and ice cream sandwiches for dessert, but other than that, it's all meatballs, all the time.

Open until 4:00 AM Thursday through Saturday, and until 2:00 AM every other day of the week, the bar and restaurant slides seamlessly into the Lower East Side: tin ceilings and communal tables, Passion Pit blasting, Brooklyn Lager on tap, comfort food at all hours.

These pliable meatballs want firm contrast, so if you order them on a sandwich instead of over pasta ($11) resist the soft brioche “smash” ($8) and sliders ($3) and go for the crusty baguette hero ($9) instead.

Sit down, grab a felt-tip pen, and mark your order on these wipe-away laminated sheets. Though the basic menu is quite simple—pick a meatball, pick a sauce, pick a delivery vehicle—the combinations add up quickly. Salmon meatballs with parmesan cream?

Those who like to design their own way through a menu will appreciate the creative freedom, but others may find it all a bit overwhelming. Let us help you narrow it down.