You can’t go wrong with anything on the menu, which changes seasonally. But their most famous dishes? The cacio e pepe and insalata verde.
Via Carota
Courtesy of Via Carota
If you look closely at Taylor Swift’s recent paparazzi photos—past the trendy outfits, Travis Kelce, and, well, the magnetic force field that is Swift herself—you’ll notice something: They’re almost always taken outside the same New York City restaurants. It’s both a surprising phenomenon (demigod Swift, frequenting a place that we can all hypothetically visit too?) and an unsurprising one. New York, after all, is a place where “going out to dinner” is the dominant social activity. Of course Swift—a Gothamite so dedicated, that she once crooned “the lights are so bright, but they never blind me”—is a frequent patron at the very culinary haunts that make the city so great.
But what are these Taylor-approved haunts, exactly? Vogue breaks them down, below. (And yes—more than one is within walking distance of Cornelia Street.)
Emilio’s Ballato
Taylor Swift and Sophie Turner took that viral paparazzi shot outside the critically acclaimed West Village restaurant Via Carota, a Tuscan-inspired restaurant by Jody Williams and Rita Sodi. Since opening in 2014, it’s been one of the hottest tables in town; besides Swift, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jennifer Lawrence, and Andy Cohen are also regulars. (In fact, the first public photos of Swift after her breakup with Joe Alwyn were taken in front of Via Carota.)