Columbus Circle’s New, Eccentric Italian Restaurant
It marks the first excursion to the UWS by Quality Branded, which bought Smith & Wollensky on the East Side in 2010 and owns restauarants in New York, Denver and Miami Beach.
| 03 Mar 2023 | 01:39
Bad Roman is a new restaurant located inside the shops at Columbus Circle. Photo: OpenTable.
New Italian restaurant Bad Roman is now open on the third floor of the Columbus Circle shopping center, marking the first excursion into the Upper West Side by the upscale father and son team that owns a cornucopia of restaurants in New York, Miami Beach and Denver.
The newest entrée headed by the father and son team of Alan and Michael Stillman and chef Craig Koketsu is already getting noticed. Eater called it “the year’s most unhinged Italian restaurant so far.” The same group behind favorites Smith & Wollensky and Don Angie have branched out into a version of regional Italian, with a sense of whimsy.
While Don Angie has already earned a Michelin star and is a favorite stop of the foodistas, the 250 seat Bad Roman is going for a broader appeal with its hanging plants and organge banquettes.
The decor is cheerful and over-the-top decadent, with a statue of a wild boar in the center of the restaurant and a bright-orange color scheme. While the menu can indeed be loosely defined as Italian or Italian-American, there are offbeat influences from other cultures, as in the roasted garlic babka.
Aside from the flagship Smith & Wollensky on the East Side, the Quality Brands now include NY’s Maloney & Porcelli, Quality Meats New York & Miami Beach, Quality Italian New York & Denver, Park Avenue (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer), and Quality Eats West Village, Upper East Side, and the trendy NoMad.
Bad Roman is located in the shops at 59th Street and is open from 5pm to 11pm every day.