https://pastainyc.com
Pastai, an artisan pasta bar located in Chelsea, is a neighborhood restaurant that aims to share its family traditions of Southern Italian countryside cooking with the world. The specialty at Pastai isn’t hard to guess given that its name means ‘the pasta makers’ in Italian.
With homemade pasta, made from scratch and by hand served in dishes using products from local famers, the dishes are fresh and of high quality. The dishes at Pastai also include a grand selection of salads, such as bietole, a warm beet salad, sandwiches, such as the salsiccia di pollo, a chicken sausage sandwich, and of course pasta options, such as spaghetti scampi and pasta al forno.
Popular dishes
Pasta
Spaghetti, bucatini, Gemelli, torchio, reginette Sauce: Tomato, Alfredo, pesto
18 reviews
House Mix Salad
2 reviews
Lasagna al Forno
Lasagna With A Short Rib Ragù, Béchamel, Ricotta & Broccoli Rabe
1 reviews
We really felt rushed in ordering and then my order was wrong. The appetizers were very good, but both of our pastas were mediocre. Disappointing for the price.
Nice neighborhood place with good food! Casual and easy. I will be back again.
Felt super rushed- pasta and bread were good but felt overpriced for the quality. We don’t drink and felt pressured to order something / the dessert. Also our server had really bad breath, sad that this wasn’t the cute place we were told about!
Food was great. Pasta cooked perfectly. Large portions. Great flavors.
Christmas dinner
Wonderful food and attentive service
Our neighborhood standby par excellence. Never disappoints! Great food. Great service. Nice for a meet up with friends or a family meal.
Pasta was amazing! Will definitely be going back. Great wine list.
A night out with a friend and so lucky to have this place in the neighborhood!
Their brunch was solid if not spectacular. We enjoyed the restaurant as a large group for a birthday brunch. Some of the dishes (the pasta ones mainly, as you could guess!) were very good, if not a bit on the smaller side. Some of the breakfast dishes (the polenta + eggs, the eggs with whipped ricotta) were a bit bland and not appeasing on their plates.
The service was great minus the unnecessary charge for our birthday dessert. We had cookies and doughnut bites so we didn't require the use of a bunch of silverware or cake cutting items but they still charged $5 per person. If they had desserts on their menu, we would have considered going with that, but at brunch the sweetest dessert like item was french toast.
Overall, definitely worth a visit for the pasta but still some things to be ironed out around their brunch and hosting for larger groups.
Very nice. Service was ok
Thanks for a special family night out. Dinner, service, setting - everything was perfect. Thank you, Pastai!
Very good food, very good wine selection, unfortunately very lame service. Front of house is letting the kitchen down. VERY loud table next to us nearly ruined the evening alas. Our memory of this place was far better than our recent experience.
A fantastic experience. Food was great and service attentive
Dinner for 4 with app and wine, slightly overpriced as it did not include any salad or accompanying vegetables. coffee after dinner, two came, one specialty coffee did not. Not particularly crowded while we were there to account for inattention.
Amazing pasta, great menu variety and a fun place to have lunch or order a casual drink
Food was good. Service was not good . Waiters kept rushing us to order, frowned when we gave back a dish that had an ingredient one of us could not eat, and also when we asked to take home the leftovers.
Had a 7pm reservation to meet with friends I hadn’t seen in over 6 years. After waiting an hour we had to catch the attention of the waiter so we could place our orders. We didn’t get our food for another hour, at 9pm. The vegetables in the chicken dish weren’t cooked thoroughly and it was nothing special. This restaurant didn’t exceed any of our expectations and the service was absolutely horrible. Made me feel horrible for suggesting a bad restaurant during their short trip when there are so many other wonderful restaurants in NYC.
Buena xperiencia
We were on time and sat right away, but didn’t get our drinks until 20 minutes later. Eggs were way over cooked on my salmon Benedict. Didn’t want to send it back, because it took quite a while to get it and the staff already seemed overwhelmed. I only ever saw a bartender and one waiter. My second time here, and I do like the ambience. I’m in the business, so I understand how hectic brunch can be sometimes, and everyone has a bad day, so I’ll most likely return.
Terrible seating in a back room right next to the dishwashing kitchen area and garden door which serves as a service entrance. Staff have no sense of customer needs in this isolated space. They shouldn’t even make this a dining area - terrible judgment - and dilutes the ideal and more appropriate sidewalk, bar, and main floor dining areas. First time we had a bad experience here, not only due to hideous seating, but also the underwhelming pasta dishes, which lacked flavor, and even the burrata was a strike out blended with red peppers?? Wow if this had been our first visit, we would never return. But clearly a terrible evening to have introduced Pastai to our friends with whom we invited.
One of the treasures of Manhattan. Neighborhood setting delivering a five star Italian experience. Should be Michelin rated great food without being haute. Truly without words you have to experience this homemade, everything is fresh, generation lost dining moment. A favorite without peer.
I really like the quant atmosphere of Pastai, great food, and great wine list.
I had called in advance to check to see if they had the Restaurant Week menu, I was told they did, but when we got there I was informed they did not.
The dish I ordered was tasty, but the description was a little misleading and it was not worth the cost.
The service was excellent!
Excellent pasta. Casual environment. Friendly service! Worth a trip!
We had a great time at the restaurant. We went for dinner but started sitting at the bar. There aren’t too many tables, so we decided to eat at the bar instead. The food was delicious!
Best pasta I’ve had! All pasta is homemade. A gem.
Personal and invisible service. Homemade pasta. Flavorful ingredients. A special treasure of multigenerational recipes, preparations, ingredients, execution. Five stars.
Attentive service. Beautifully prepared food. Lovely atmosphere
Great, fresh pasta and wonderful creative bruschetta, but service was not attentive at all. Waiter hardly checked in on us, not even to refill water
A very cute Chelsea spot! It's a small place with an open kitchen, so it was a little warm, but everything was so good. We ordered three antipasti to start - all were delicious, but the fried artichokes were AMAZING. They also made great cocktails and had an extensive, reasonably priced wine list. Highly recommend for a quick dinner / drink!
Come to Pastai for the pasta. It's truly the best pasta I've ever had (sorry Granny). Nice wine list and friendly service. Pastai is a true Chelsea gem!
Love Sicilian dishes. The food here is really good. Certainly not a fancy place. Very casual , but, very enjoyable dinner. Will definitely return.
We very much enjoyed our dinner at Pastai! The service was excellent, our food was delicious and the restaurant was a fun place to enjoy dinner with friends. We will definitely return on our next visit to NYC!
I was specifically there for pasta con le sarde and their version wasn’t even close to what the dish was that I had in Palermo.
Noisy and crowded.
Nice neighborhood place. Always interesting and seasonal specials. Wonderful cocktails.
Such a cute place with exquisite food!! Great time with friends celebrating!!
Interesting menu, good service, but way too noisy for real conversation.
Great food and service. No spaghetti o’s served here!!!
Really nice place. Watermelon martini was delicious and refreshing. Arancini were almost as good as my grandmother's. The carbonara was perfectly executed. Will come back real soon.
FAQs
You can order delivery directly from Pastai using the Order Online button. Pastai also offers takeout which you can order by calling the restaurant at (646) 688-3463.
Pastai is rated 4.4 stars by 152 OpenTable diners.
Yes, you can generally book this restaurant by choosing the date, time and party size on OpenTable. Due to local restrictions, this restaurant may not be accepting reservations at the moment.