There’s never been a better time to dine at The Musket Room. Since opening in 2013, the acclaimed Nolita restaurant has gained and maintained a MICHELIN Star, gone through a few chef changes, and even operated from a vintage van parked outside during Covid. In recent years, the restaurant—led by owner Jennifer Vitagliano—has comfortably embraced its position as both destination dining and a neighborhood favorite, thanks to all-star female chef team Mary Attea and Camari Mick.
You can celebrate special occasions with the globe-trotting tasting menu from Attea featuring next-level pastries from Mick—the duo received a glowing review from former NYT critic Pete Wells in 2022 and were just named part of Food & Wine’s coveted Best New Chefs list for 2024. Or you can do as most regulars do and slide in for a weeknight a la carte affair, get chatty with The Musket Room’s bartenders, and rub elbows with longtime New Yorkers.
Few fine-dining restaurants can straddle this balance between formal and casual so effortlessly, and that’s what makes The Musket Room stand out in the dining scene here more than a decade after it opened. We recently sat down with Vitagliano and Attea to find out about the dish you can’t miss, how the restaurant has evolved, and more.
Read on for all the details on The Musket Room, and make a booking on OpenTable.
What do you think The Musket Room’s X factor is?
Jennifer Vitagliano: I think it’s our team dynamic. I think everyone has a lot of fun together. Both front-of-house and back-of-house get to tell back-of-house’s story. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. The service is very polished but friendly. Personalized service is kind of what we’re known for.
What does good service look like for you?
Vitagliano: Good service is about hitting all of the steps of service and being technically very polished, but also getting to know the guest and having them know a little bit of your personality. Some guests like to talk a lot and learn a lot about the food, some guests will prefer not to be interrupted, so kind of having that intuition to understand the kind of experience that your guest wants and leading them through that experience.
What’s the one dish you’ll never remove from the menu?
Mary Attea: The jamón Ibérico and smoked mussels have been on for several years now and are a fan favorite. Pete Wells has mentioned them, and I think there could be an uprising if we took this dish off.
Vitagliano: A dish that’s really personal to me, and it goes on and off the menu, but it is a Musket classic, is our chicken liver mousse. We’ve probably had some version since the beginning, but certainly since chef Mary started, it’s the first dish she ever made for me to taste when we were getting to know each other in a professional capacity. It’s a chicken liver mousse with fig and pistachio and depending on [the] time of year, she might use araq, which is a Lebanese spirit that speaks to her heritage, or she might use my family’s anisette, so it is something that is personal to both of us.
What’s the underdog of the menu?
Attea: I am a huge fan of our current iteration of the panisse. This version, which returns seasonally, is an ode to the garbanzo bean. It’s a fried panisse made with coconut milk, served with fresh green chickpeas, coconut vindaloo-spiced broth, crispy chana dal, and pickled red onion. It hits all the right notes, is satisfying, colorful, and completely vegan. I don’t think it would necessarily be the first item people gravitate toward, but it’s one of my favorites.
What is the hidden gem on the wine list?
Vitagliano: We have a really wonderful Madeira collection that we grew during Covid that the team loves to pair with chef Camari’s desserts, which I think is a little unusual and something a guest wouldn’t think to order that we can introduce them to.
What’s the most memorable request you’ve received from a customer?
Vitagliano: One of our regulars, they had a New York-themed wedding somewhere international. The Musket Room is very dear to their relationship. They had their first date here, and they celebrate their anniversaries with us. They wanted us to be represented at their wedding, so we sent all of their favorite wines for them to enjoy at their wedding. We love to surprise people. We have surprised people at other restaurants and sent them things at restaurants in other cities.
What’s the best seat in the house?
Vitagliano: I really like the bar. It’s where regulars sit, so you can see everyone coming into the restaurant, you get to interact with the staff coming and going. And then table one, it’s the only corner booth where you can sit next to your dinner companion. It’s a romantic little corner table right by the window.
When is the best time to find a reservation?
Vitagliano: We see our regulars and our locals on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so if you like to get a real sense of people who frequent our restaurant, during the week is definitely the best time to visit. It’s a more local vibe where you can rub elbows with some real New Yorkers.
Attea: We always try to cultivate an early crowd, whether it’s snacks at the bar or a full meal. The 5 pm-to-6 pm hour is perfect, as the tasting experience can be around two hours. Out by 7 pm or 8 pm to carry on with your night or better yet, home and into bed early.
What’s been the biggest change at the restaurant since the opening?
Vitagliano: I think the heart of the restaurant has changed. It opened as one person’s vision, and now it tells the story of all our chefs and our whole kitchen team. It is based on everyone’s heritages and travels. A lot of attention is on our chefs, and they choose to share their spotlight with other chefs, younger chefs, people who are coming up in our kitchen, so I think that’s important and our team loves to see it as well.
What’s your favorite award you’ve won?
Vitagliano: Mary and Camari started and we retained our star in 2020 and 2021, but 2022 was the first time we really got to celebrate it together. It was the first MICHELIN-Star gala that we got to attend with Mary and Camari and the recognition felt different with this team in place [The Musket Room has held a star since it opened].
We were really hitting our stride, we were opening another restaurant [Raf’s], Pete Wells had been in a few times, it felt like a renewed focus on our restaurant that I had already been working so hard on for 10 years. The team coming together through all of that Covid stuff—it really showed that we are stronger coming out of Covid than we were going into it.
Attea: The MICHELIN Star is a huge honor. And being listed on the New York Times 50 best restaurants in the country was an incredible accolade.
Tanay Warerkar is a content marketing manager at OpenTable, where he oversees features content and stays on top of the hottest trends and developments in the restaurant industry. He brings years of experience as a food editor and reporter having worked at the San Francisco Chronicle, Eater, and the New York Daily News, to name a few.
