Marta

29 East 29th Street

(between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South)

Danny Meyer’s new pizza restaurant offering tasty, inventive, and affordable Neapolitan thin-crust pizza options, and great service. What more do you need to know?

Located inside the Martha Washington Hotel, reservations are highly recommended especially during prime dinnertime. I fortunately had made dinner reservations two weeks prior for a Monday night dinner at 7:30 p.m.

I had requested to be seated in the mezzanine to escape the hustle-and-bustle of the main dining room. However, if you like to people watch and spy on what other diners are ordering the main dining area might be a better option for you.

We started off with cocktails. I ordered the American Spritz (cocchi Americano, Amaro Montenegro, and prosecco) (pictured left) while my friend ordered the Pompelmo Paloma (El Jimador tequila, lime, and San Pellegrino grapefruit soda). The spritz was a light cocktail, but not something I would order again.

We ordered two pizzas: one rosse (red), one bianche (white).

The red pizza we chose was the salsiccia (pork sausage, cremini mushrooms, mozzarella, and pecorino. We found it a bit too salty.

The white pizza we chose was the patate alla carbonara (potatoes, guanciale, black pepper, pecorino, and egg). Simply delicious. It’s hearty, and who knew that eggs would serve as a perfect pizza topping!

For dessert, we ordered their famed ice cream panino (salted chocolate cookie, pistachio, smoked mascarpone gelato). We found this dessert hard to share, and the cookie too hard.

We also ordered the olive oil affogato (olio verde, honeycomb candy, vanilla gelato, kumquat, and orange). The olive oil is poured over the dessert at the table. A MUST order simply for the drama of the olive oil pour, but the various mix of citrus fruits with the vanilla gelato were a wonderful explosion of spring flavors.

My friend ordered a satisfying cappuccino ($3.75) to go with dessert.

Whereas I ordered a glass of the Pinot Nero, which was a full-bodied red with a long, smooth finish. A perfect complement for both dessert and pizza. One glass was $15.

Pros:

Friendly service.

Comfortable lobby waiting area.

There is even an additional bar if you walk toward the back of the hotel where you may have a drink if you arrive early.

Cons:

Wished there were more interesting salad appetizer offerings.

Final Thoughts

Will definitely return!

Pizza pricing: $14 to $19

Desserts: $5 to $8