Maruzzella
1483 First Ave., New York, NY
Just North of 77th Street
(212) 988-8877
Maruzzella is an Italian restaurant in New York City that has an excellent Chicken special. I had only eaten a Starbucks Double Chocolate Brownie all day and a couple cups of tea, so when dinner rolled around 6:30 PM I was very hungry. When my father and I sat down, Maruzzella was empty. But it didn’t stay that way. By the time 7PM rolled around the place was half-full. So I ordered there Minestrone soup and that was good. It had vegetables in it that tasted fresh and it wasn’t too salty. Also the broth was flavorful while still being what I would consider a lighter soup. The chicken special I ordered was a big piece of chicken with cheese inside of it. It also had prosciutto ham stuffed inside the chicken. I was surprised at how big the piece of chicken was. It also came with potatoes that were seasoned and good because they were crispy on the outside.
The chicken was cooked in such an excellent way that each bite was a real pleasure to eat. It was a meal worth savoring and that was important because it was so filling. I remember being shocked by how full I was half-way through eating the chicken. The reason for this is because Maruzzella is a place that has the feel of comfortable fine dining and so I expected the portion to be very small. And the cheese that was inside the chicken was the perfect consistency of both creamy yet pliable. It didn’t all goosh out under pressure. Each bite was accompanied by cheese.
I’m not sure how often they are going to be serving this chicken special. And I also don’t know what the price was. But I do know that the soup was $7.00 or so. But my Dad ordered a veal dish and he said it was really good but the portions were no where near as large as my chicken portion. And this makes sense because usually veal is more expensive than chicken. And also my chicken was filled with cheese so that probably made it bloated.
As for the music selection that was played. The music was high energy female vocally driven Italian pop music. That music made the experience more casual and that is why I say it is not a fully fine dining meal. The server was very good except I couldn’t really understand him when he said the specials. So when I was interested in the chicken one I had to ask him more questions, and he didn’t mind repeating himself. He was very short and I liked that because it made it seem like a fun Italian place with a short dude.
Maruzzella has a lot of staff. Our meal was introduced by the server, there was an expo, and a bus-boy. There also was management staff that was checking on everything. So even though we didn’t have a problem with anything, if we did I’m sure that issue would have been addressed quickly.
The decor was traditional Italian nice place style. Nothing really stood out in particular.
What blows my mind is that I am still not hungry and it is 11:19 PM. By now if I ate a normal meal I would be going nuts devouring bananas and pears right now.
-Tyler