When Jenni Guizio, the former wine director at Union Square Hospitality Group, and her business partner Mark Shami stumbled on a restaurant space in a landmarked building at 72 Bedford Street, they knew they had to make it something special. They soon joined forces with Maxime Pradié, the former chef de cuisine at Lodi, and are now leading the charge at Zimmi’s in New York.
You can expect French and Italian food influenced by Pradié’s childhood, and a cozy restaurant that the team hopes will become a favorite like the two-decades-old Brazilian spot Casa that was in the space before Zimmi’s.
“What we’re trying to do is retain a little bit of that [neighborhood character] and, hopefully, become a staple in our own right, an enduring restaurant that the people of the neighborhood can return to again and again,” Guizio says.
The restaurant’s name nods to Marie Zimmerman, a famed early 20th century jewelry designer and modernist metalworker, whose extraordinary life became an inspiration for the restaurant. Although a New Yorker, Zimmerman had a small farm in Pennsylvania, which just so happened to come to Guizio a few years ago.
“I guess I got obsessed [with her story],” Guizio says. “She was a champion of women’s rights. She was also an openly queer woman, which was for the 1930s, pretty unheard of, and lived this bon vivant-type of lifestyle.”
That bold, welcoming ethos became something of a guiding light for Zimmi’s. The hope is to capture that vibe of gathering around a big table, where both food and wine are unpretentious and familiar, but never conventional.
Read on for how it all comes together at Zimmi’s, and make a booking on OpenTable.
What to eat
Pradié spent his summers growing up at his Italian-born grandmother’s house in Arcachon, a small town in southern France. Life there inevitably revolved around the dinner table. “[she] cooked this Italian-inflected food from the southwest of France, which typically has more of a Spanish influence to it, but given that she was Italian, she cooked in that way,” Pradié says.
Her personal style of cooking was the inspiration for the menu at Zimmi’s. That means pissaladière, a Niçoise flatbread topped with caramelized onions, anchovies, and olives, sits alongside pastas that could easily live in a Roman trattoria. Pradié created the tagliatelle alle rigaglie di pollo as an homage to his grandmother who made the offal dish with the heart, liver, and gizzards of a roast chicken.
Don’t miss out on dessert—you can expect dishes like a soufflé with saffron and yellow Chartreuse.
What to drink
Much like the food, the wine list at Zimmi’s is French-forward with a focus on small producers and is ideal for sharing. “There’s something beautiful about having a bunch of really good food on the table and putting down a wine or two that will go with everything,” says Cory Holt, previously of the Musket Room, who oversees the wine program. “I think it is often the more fun and convivial way to serve wine and drink it.”
To that end, you can order wine both by the bottle and half bottle to maximize what you want to order with the food.
Where to sit
Grab a spot by the immense front windows if you want to people-watch on one of the most picturesque streets in the West Village. That said, with just 40 seats, there isn’t a bad spot in the house here.
The vibe feels akin to a dinner party at the home of a friend with fabulous taste. As a nod to the historic nature of the building, the cozy restaurant is a mix of old and new. Antiques sit alongside custom made blown-glass light fixtures, ornate metalwork, and carved wood furnishings.
Diana Hubbell is a James Beard Award-winning food and culture journalist based in Brooklyn. Currently an associate editor at Atlas Obscura, she has also written for Eater, The Washington Post, The Guardian, VICE, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, WIRED, and Playboy, among others.
