Piora
“Favorites so far octopus, poached egg, scallops, crab and black garlic bucatini and the pork belly.”
“Simon and his team have done such an amazing job at creating an intimate environment with outstanding service. …”
“The barbecued octopus in gochujang with basil, pine nuts, and red pepper flakes also sounded amazing – next time, for sure.”
Piora
Takes Reservations: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$$$ Price range Above $61
8 reviews
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Before dining at Piora, I could hardly picture something as creative as the combo of Korean and Italian – apparently the former features spicy sauces and raw seafood while the latter focuses on bread and cheese. Piora opened up a completely new world for me.
Making reservation was not at all too difficult and we were seated promptly upon arrival. Either three-course prex-fixe or six-course chef's tasting could be chosen in the dining room while a la carte was only available in the bar room. Kindly note that dishes of tasting menu were not specified on the website however they offer a vision menu by presenting a box of raw material in front of you and let you make the guess here! Classic.
Opted for the tasting menu.
Bucatini with black garlic and Dungeness crab meat was by far my favorite savory course. With this special type of spaghetti, it was able to absorb the the juice of meat and mushroom thoroughly. The market vegetable, on the other hand, provided me a down-to-earth feeling and was not at all underwhelming. Dessert was always fantastic – cranberry sorbet had just the right level of sweetness with a sour tilt; while the coconut passion fruit marshmallow was so soft that it almost melted in my mouth!
I guess ambience was not that important once the food itself dominated, though Piora indeed presented an equally remarkable atmosphere. Well deserved the continuation of Michelin star and I could already envision more to come.
I was hoping to four star this review, especially at this price point. The review should really be two stars if you take an incredibly awkward FOH into account.
The one saving grace was the seasonal vegetable first course. Each dish was on the verge of excellent with one or two technical flaws that held it back. The chef seems to know what he's doing, It just needs a little more finesse.
I want to love Piora for being a cute restaurant with few seatings near Greenwich village. I want to love Piora since everyone in yelp said its a 4.5 spot; and usually when everyone said its 4.5, the restaurant must be super uber delicious right? Unfortunately in this case I have to be the outlier for reviewing Piora.
1) A friend of mine is allergic to shell fish and for his birthday's meal, he had called Piora a priori to tell them about his allergy. Upon our arrival we informed our waiter about our desire to order tasting menu whereby my friend is allergic to shellfish. The chef rejected our offer and our good looking yet mean sommelier informed us that there's no way the chef can accommodate allergies in condescending manner. Consequently I argued with the manager Jeffrey (who is super nice) and told him in my experience dining at dozens of Michelin star restaurants, even eleven Madison park or Noma accommodate allergies.
In the end we were served "modified" tasting menu to please my birthday friends after a lot of back and forth with the kitchen. This should never happen in front of my birthday friend who is supposed to be enjoying dinner vs listening to argument with various person in the restaurants.
2) The modified tasting menu comprised of a few high lights and a lot of failures. Caviar tacos' skin overpowered the caviar Flavors. Wheat bread with sunflower spread tasted bland and should have been paired with stronger flavor like foie or pate. Ham and melon could have been delicious pairing but the presence of heaps of peanuts ruined the flavor profile.
On the other hand, our only protein for the main course was delicious. Avian poularde was very juicy with amazing sauce. Sadly the best part of the meal was the palate cleanser – which is a combination of shaved ice and ice cream with lavender flavor.
3) Cocktails sound very nice with Asian influence such as Yuzu or watermelon juice. However upon drinking the $16+ cocktails, you will realize the amount of alcohol in the drink is almost as diluted as non alcoholic drinks. Definitely not bang for your buck.
All and all, the experience in TGIF or Olive Garden maybe a better one whereby you are not paying $450+ check for rude service from the staff or watered down drink or basic pasta. Jeffrey is the only one who tried to save our night by trying to accommodate our friend's allergy – come on folks, have you visited alinea, Noma, Arpege or el bulli? Despite attempt from Jeffrey to modify the tasting menu, the food served was very average with almost no protein. I left the restaurant feeling very angry for paying $450+ and unsatisfied. It's very justified if our bill is $450+ and we had had Kobe beef or delicious protein; not when we were poorly served with wheat bread, tiny tacos, small pasta, salad, small amount of fancy chicken.
Save your money and go to Olive Garden or Pizza Hut. Or eleven Madison park really if you want to splurge.
I had forgotten I had eaten at Piora and that is too bad. What a neighborhood gem it is! Our fussy party of four loved the restaurant. I was a bit nervous given the fact that my crowd likes to pick apart the food, but not a complaint here. The verdict was that we all have to return.
I came here with my wife for her birthday. This place has been getting good reviews from yelp, got 2 stars from ny times, but mostly I was intrigued by the name of the restaurant, which in Korean means to blossom.
I let them know in advance about the birthday, and they gave us the personalized menu. When we got there, they were prepping our table and asked us to wait in the bar area, and provided water while waiting. Dining room was very small, but cozy, and spacious enough that other parties didn't bother us.
We started with mocktail, a watermelon and the shiso ginger drink. Unfortunately neither was impressed. My watermelon drink was basically lemonade with watermelon flavor. My wife's shiso ginger drink didn't have any shiso's unique flavor and asked the server to get more shiso flavof and later only to find out that the restaurant uses syrup instead of actual leaf. We thought it would have been a better drink with real shiso leaf, a bit of syrup, a bit of ginger and sierra mist and lemonade.
They didn't have any complementary bread but served monkey bread with 6 dollars extra, and it was good. They came with seaweed butter and ricotta cream, which were both very good. Bread was just baked, and it was very warm and sweet (in a good way).
As for the dishes, our first dish (burrata tomato and ocean) were ok. my plate, ocean, used bean paste powder with seabream. I thought it was a unique approach, but didn't really appreciate the synergy between two ingredient. Our favorites were the 2nd course. My wife ordered rigatoni with sausage and I ordered gnocchi with chantrelle mushroom. They were great. Rigatoni had the perfect thickness on its pasta to make perfect balance with sausage bits, and my gnocchi was very rich in flavor. The entrees were lamb and halibut, which were fine, too. On dessert, they brought the hazelnut pudding with a candle for my wife's birthday.
Ambience was nice, and the service was very good. I would recommend this place to other people.
Solid pre-fixe dining in a date-night setting. I'd recommend the Sweet potato, Gnocchi, and Chicken for their bold flavors and interesting combinations. Among high-end dining, this serves relatively larger entrees and meat portions so make sure your appetite is calling.
Visiter Piora for my birthday last night. It was my second time visiting this restaurant (about 2,5 years ago last time). The menu has changed quite a bit and offers a limited selection of 9 dishes, 3 apps, 3 pastas, 3 entrees (fluke, poussin, lamb) as well as a couple of specials (including what looked like an incredible cote de boeuf for 2).
The food was very tasty – starting by the pork belly which was glazed to perfection and incredibly tender. I then had the agnolotti with fava beans and the chicken/foie gras dish served with figs and chicken jus and both were excellent. The portions are on the small side but the price is a bit deterrent to share more dishes. The bread and butter served however, makes up for that and we filled up quite nicely on a couple portions of freshly baked rolls and seasoned butter. For some reason, the bar seemed a bit overwhelmed (even though the restaurant was not too crowded). My boyfriend ordered a mocktail which only came 15min after I received my wine glass, and after our appetizer had come (Piora comp'd us his drink, which was appreciated).
The decor is still great. Modern lines with a very cosey, homey townhouse feel. it's unlike anything in NY and a sort of place that makes you immediately comfortable.
The staff was great, special mention to Jeffrey to came to introduce himself and chatted with us at the end of our meal as well. He mentioned that they change their menu very often to offer only the freshest ingredients available in season (which explains the small menu).
All in all, a great NY dining experience for an intimate, romantic night out in the village.
3.75 :)… Piora is good. The portions are small and the food is pricey, but overall I don't mind giving them the nod.
First, our group of four thought the ambiance and general "feel" of the restaurant was spot on. A bit minimalist, smaller, darker, modern… all good. It took maybe 10 minutes to seat us for dinner which is reasonable in such a popular place (we had a reservation). The service was also good with one small exception which I'll mention towards the end.
I should also mention that here they have a fixed menu with either 2-course or 3-course prix-fixe pricing. Now on to the review…
Food-wise, I think the "market vegetables" was a totally special dish which I could eat again and again. Totally unexpected and wonderful. My dinner companions also really enjoyed the bucatini… Though in reality all the dishes were very well done, including the agnolotti, chicken wing, cavatelli, lamb, and the fluke.
We also had the 40 oz bone-in rib-eye special which a couple of us shared. It was tasty but not really "steakhouse" tasty (and not worth the $85 supplement on top of the prix-fixe pricing). I think given the quality and texture of the meat it would have been better if it were cooked medium vs. medium rare.
Add in a bottle of wine and several cocktails and you're rapidly approaching the 1-G category (that's almost $250/person). And then there's the issue of charging us $15 more for the wine than the price on the menu ("oh sorry, our bad- glad you caught that…") and you get the 1.25 star deduction.
Would we go back? Maybe, but we probably wouldn't order anything that was above-and-beyond the prix-fixe menu. But hey, they do give you free stuff at the end (for us a lovely glass of rosé) to make you feel better about dropping all that cash. So there's that…