San Gennaro Lunch at Il Cortile Restaurant then Walk Feast!

Il Cortile is a beloved family-owned Northern Italian staple located at 125 Mulberry Street in the heart of Manhattan's Little Italy, where it has been serving classic dishes since 1975.🌿 Atmosphere & DesignThe Atrium: The restaurant's crowning feature is its signature glass-covered garden atrium and open courtyard dining room (il cortile translates to "the courtyard"). It offers a scenic, sunlit, or starlit escape from the busy sidewalks of Mulberry Street.Old-School Elegance: Inside, it features a warm, romantic, and deeply nostalgic vibe complete with white tablecloths, fresh flower arrangements, and Roman-style statues.🍝 Specialties & Menu HighlightsNorthern Italian Fare: The kitchen focuses heavily on classic, comforting Northern Italian recipes. Standout menu items include their highly praised lobster ravioli served in a rich vodka sauce, chicken parmigiana, eggplant rollatini, and an array of traditional veal preparations. It’s that time of year again, and this one is huge! The Feast of San Gennaro is celebrating its 100th Anniversary, and we need to get the group together to experience the centennial energy (and eat our weight in street food).Let's head over to Little Italy for an epic lunch, wander through the festival blocks, soak in the neighborhood atmosphere, and definitely share a great bottle of wine (or three)]Whether you're craving a classic sausage and peppers hero, a fresh cannoli, or just want to enjoy a lively afternoon out with the guys, it's going to be a blast. We will have a great sit down meal in Little Italy during the day, NO CROWDS!!! Lunchtime! We can walk the feast comfortably without the crowds. For a wonderful sit down meal, served by traditional handsome male waiters . 5. Meetup fee 😀 🌟🌟🌟🌟cash is best for bill🌟🌟🌟🌟 In my opinion there is no better than IL CORTILE! Local Folklore: For decades, locals and music fans have debated whether its classic old-school dining room served as a primary design inspiration for Billy Joel's iconic ballad "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant." The Sopranos and many many other famous people love this restaurant. 🌟🌟🌟🌟A review by The Infatuation… Against your savviest restaurant-going instincts, despite your natural wariness of tourist traps, there’s a part of you that longs for a classic Little Italy experience: An old-school Italian restaurant complete with a flirtatious sidewalk greeter, luring in would-be diners with a bella this, and a bella that. More often than not, a meal at such an institution will be resoundingly disappointing—but not at Il Cortile. The food at this Mulberry Street restaurant, in operation since 1975, is rich, perfectly seasoned, and delicious by the standards of this neighborhood, or any other. Il Cortile is Italian for “the courtyard,” a reference to the attractive glass-ceilinged atrium at the rear of the restaurant. The large, lightly faded fake-flower centerpiece in the middle of this space somehow makes the overall ambience more, and not less, charming. As does the dining room’s collection of Ancient Roman-style statuary, which is only slightly less impressive than the one at The Met. There are plaques bearing the names of Sopranos stars (and Il Cortile regulars) like Steve Schirippa and Tony Sirico on the walls, not to mention an autographed portrait of the late James Gandolfini. Il Cortile has a special place in Sopranos lore, as the restaurant where actors would be taken out to eat by their castmates as a farewell when their characters got whacked. You could do much, much worse for a last meal.🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟