A friend alerted me to this restaurant review by Sam Sifton in the Times: “Rage can overtake a person at Nello: the place is what used to be called a rip. (And the desserts are stale to boot.) But if $32 means nothing to you, if it is the equivalent of the dollar the rest of us can spend on a slice of pizza off Times Square, the restaurant is welcoming and the people-watching is nonpareil. There is nothing snobby about it at all, least of all the food.
One night at dinner, there was a very tall woman in elegant clothes, with skin stretched tight over her face in unnatural ways and glasses the size of salad plates to magnify that. She was eating with a small red-faced fellow with dark hair in a center part, who was wearing an ascot and green Tyrolean coat. A cartoonist might render them as an awkward French giraffe and a mischievous Austrian chimp.”

I must admit that I have been to Nello a couple of times.

Rage never overtook me, but I’m a very reasonable person.

Sam Stifton doesn’t mention the lobster ravioli at $35 or $45 -- I’m not sure. Let me tell you this: the lobster ravioli at Nello is definitely edible.

If I had the money to entertain twelve masseuses at once I would take them to Nello and I would force-feed them lobster ravioli. Of course I would call this performance art, but that’s what Nello is all about – as Mr. Sifton pointed out rather eloquently.