I Sodi has been one of the hardest small tables in the West Village for years, which has produced a lot of writing about how to beat its reservation system and almost none about the sentence printed on its own reservations page: walk-ins are always welcome. Rita Sodi's Tuscan restaurant, now at 105 Christopher Street, serves dinner every night from half past five until eleven and lunch at weekends. The Resy window opens fourteen days ahead at nine in the morning and closes in the way these things do. Both routes work. Most people only try one.
Fourteen days out at nine, or simply turn up — the second route is published policy and almost nobody uses it. Ask Karpo which is realistic tonight.
The two ways in
Reservations release on Resy fourteen days in advance at 9:00am Eastern. That is a shorter window than most restaurants at this level of demand, which means the competition is concentrated rather than spread out.
Fourteen days is short enough to be useful. You are booking a fortnight ahead, not a month, which means you know whether you will actually want to be in the West Village on that night.
The walk-in policy is stated plainly and is a standing one rather than an occasional courtesy. Arriving early, being flexible about where you sit, and being a party of one or two are the three things that make it work.
Half past five, when the doors open, is the reliable walk-in hour. The other one is late — after about half past nine the first turn has cleared and the room settles.
What to order, starting with the obvious
The lasagna is the dish, and unusually for a restaurant this celebrated, the famous plate is genuinely the right first order. It is built from a great many very thin layers rather than a few thick ones, and the difference in texture is the entire argument.
Around it, the menu is Tuscan in a restrained, unfashionable way — few ingredients per plate, no decoration, and a confidence that a well-sourced vegetable does not need help.
Order less than you think. The portions are calibrated for a proper Italian progression and tables that order a starter, a pasta and a main each end up defeated.
The negroni here has its own small reputation and is worth having before you sit down rather than with the food.
A word on the lasagna's reputation, because it has become the kind of dish that gets ordered as a photograph. What makes it work is a technical decision rather than a recipe secret: the layers are rolled thin enough that the finished slice is mostly pasta by count and mostly sauce by weight, so it holds its shape when cut and collapses in the mouth rather than on the plate.
That is a difficult thing to do consistently for a full service, and it is the reason this restaurant is talked about rather than simply liked.
The room, and why it is small on purpose
This is a narrow room with a small number of tables, warm light and very little decoration. There is no music competing with conversation and no attempt at drama.
That scale is why the reservation is difficult and why the experience is good. A restaurant this size can cook everything to order and can afford to have someone paying attention to your table.
It also means arriving as a group of six is a much harder proposition than arriving as a pair. If you have a large party, book far ahead and expect the room to be tight.
Solo dining is entirely normal here and is close to the best way to use the walk-in policy.
Weekend lunch is the unfought territory
Lunch runs Saturday and Sunday from noon to three. Almost all of the demand and all of the internet's attention is aimed at dinner.
Weekend lunch in the West Village is one of the better things available in Manhattan, and doing it here rather than at a brunch restaurant is a considerably more interesting choice.
Daylight also changes the room. The evening version is candlelit and close; the midday version is calmer and lets you actually see what you are eating.
If you have been trying and failing to get a dinner table for weeks, a Saturday lunch solves the problem immediately.
There is a further advantage to lunch that nobody mentions: it is materially cheaper to eat a full meal here at midday than at night, not because the prices differ dramatically but because the format does. A pasta and a glass of wine at lunch is a complete meal. At dinner, the room's rhythm pulls you toward three courses.
The neighbourhood around it
Christopher Street runs through the heart of the West Village, in the tangle of streets where the Manhattan grid gives up. The blocks around the restaurant are residential, low and among the most pleasant in the city to walk before dinner.
The waterfront at Hudson River Park is a few minutes west, and walking there before an early seating uses the daylight well.
There are bars within a two-minute walk in every direction, which is what makes the walk-in strategy practical: putting your name down and having a drink nearby is easy here in a way it is not in most neighbourhoods.
The 1 train at Christopher Street and the A, C, E and B, D, F, M at West 4th are all within a short walk.
Practical notes
I Sodi is at 105 Christopher Street, New York. Dinner daily 5:30pm to 11:00pm; lunch Saturday and Sunday noon to 3pm.
Reservations open on Resy fourteen days ahead at 9:00am Eastern. Walk-ins are always welcome.
The restaurant moved from its long-time Bleecker Street address; older listings and maps may still show the previous location a couple of blocks away.
The move also changed the room slightly. It is a little larger than the old one and marginally easier to walk into, which is worth knowing if your impression of the difficulty was formed several years ago.
Tags: #NYC #WestVillage #ISodi #DinnerNearMe #HiddenGems #Tuscan #ChristopherStreet #WalkIn #NYCDining #Lasagna #Manhattan #Italian
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know whether tonight's walk-in odds are decent, when the next fourteen-day window opens, and where to wait nearby if there is a queue? Ask Karpo to check I Sodi and hold a West Village backup.
