Jody Williams is a self-taught, James Beard Award-winning American chef and television personality. She is known for her successful New York City restaurants and her culinary partnership with fellow chef Rita Sodi.
Via Carota is a beloved West Village gastroteca and trattoria in NYC, co-founded by acclaimed chefs Jody Williams and Rita Sodi. It's renowned for its deeply appealing, authentic Italian cuisine, inspired by a 17th-century Florentine villa. The restaurant offers a cozy, old-world ambiance, aiming to be a neighborhood spot for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or late-night drinks.
Customers consistently praise Via Carota for its sublime, high-quality Italian food, with fresh egg pastas like Cacio e Pepe and Egg Tagliatelle with Prosciutto being standout dishes. The ambiance is frequently described as cozy, authentic, and reminiscent of a 'Nonna's kitchen.' While service is generally excellent, the restaurant is extremely popular, leading to long wait times for tables, which patrons widely agree are 'worth every single minute of the wait.'
Additional Details
Beyond its restaurant offerings, Via Carota has expanded its brand to include a line of bottled craft cocktails, such as their Signature Manhattan, allowing patrons to enjoy their expertly mixed drinks at home.
Reservations are highly recommended and often fully booked well in advance. To avoid long waits, consider visiting for lunch or arriving early for dinner (e.g., right at opening or around 5 PM on a weekday) to secure a table or bar seating. Expect significant wait times during peak dinner hours.
5
We had been wanting to go to Via Carota for a long time and could never get a reservation. We decided to put our name down and were given a table in 45 minutes — worth every single minute of the wait.
Absolutely sublime food. You can truly tell how much care goes into everything they do. The fresh egg pastas are outstanding, the salad was spectacular, and the bruschetta with house-made bread was incredible. Everything was flawless.
The space is super cozy and beautiful, and the service was a solid 10/10.
The egg tagliatelle with prosciutto was one of the best pasta dishes I’ve ever had in my life. That butter… simply wow. No words.
10/10 — we will definitely be back. 🍝✨
A warm shoutout to Gabriel Davila! He’s incredibly attentive and even complimented our table with Pistachio Cannoli’s making it a memorable business lunch.
As soon as I ate the Cacio e Pepe pasta, I turned to my friends and said “I get it”….
By far, exceptional food, drinks and design. I feel like I’m dining in my Nonna’s kitchen.
We ordered the Cacio E Pepe, Salad Verde, Octopus and Mushrooms. We also tried the famous Negroni :)
What makes Via Carota exceptional is not only the food but the service. Myles hosted us and helped us find a table. Malika was warm and attentive.
We’ll definitely be back Via!
Paulina
We had been eager to visit Via Carota for quite some time—especially as it is said that Taylor Swift may have dined here before. On December 23, we decided to stop by at lunchtime on a whim, hoping to get a table, as reservations were already fully booked. Luckily, we were offered seats at the bar.
From the moment we entered, we were struck by the restaurant’s authentic and cozy atmosphere. During our enjoyable 1.5-hour stay, we had the pleasure of tasting several delicious dishes, some of which were recommended by our server. The service—primarily provided by the gentleman behind the bar—was genuine, friendly, efficient, and perfectly suited to the character of this place.
We enjoyed every single dish and treated ourselves to a Spagliato as well. The price-to-quality ratio felt right to us. While it was on the pricier side for lunch, we are true food lovers and are more than happy to spend money on high-quality ingredients and excellent cuisine.
We can wholeheartedly recommend this restaurant. Thank you for a warm, delicious, and memorable lunch!
A delicious meal. I walked in as one person at 5pm on a Thursday and was seated at the bar immediately. The salad was as good as promised (I’d actually made the NYTimes version before ever tasting the original) and the special pesto with pine nuts was spectacular. The service wasn’t perfect, one of the bartenders was obviously overwhelmed, but I’ve been that overwhelmed service person in the past. The other bar tender was completely calm and professional. Such a great place!
Food was delicious and beautiful, you can feel the commitment of the chefs to delivering high quality dishes. The green salad sounds generic but it’s not - that’s a good salad! The octopus was great, and the cacio e pepe pasta was my favorite! I had a “contessa” cocktail, which was gin & aperol, very Italian LOL. We waited an hour, and by the time we got in, the wait was two hours. And I understand why people wait! Recommended. P.S. get the olive oil cake for dessert!
