The skylit second floor restaurant is an industrial farmhouse of earthly delights with a menu that is almost overwhelming in its ample riches-appetizing antipasti, housemade pasta, pizzas, and secondi like lamb loin and whole roasted chicken wood-fired to perfection, and so much wine.Ĭhe Fico's focaccia with whipped mascarpone and Sicilian olive oil. 'At Che Fico, we’ve decided to lean into abundance.”Īnd how abundant the 2022 Che Fico is, with its red mosaic tiles, walls papered in ripened fruit, and botanicals that drape from the rafters. With costs rising fast, “right now, a lot of people are making a beeline for the bottom,” says David Nayfeld, Che Fico’s executive chef and co-owner. Now, after being shuttered for two years, the Italian restaurant darling has finally re-emerged from its chrysalis, a more mature, more confident version of its pre-pandemic self. But Che Fico was a gastronomic juggernaut that, even as the restaurant approached the end of its second year, could only be slowed by some kind of earth-shattering, global disaster. “I tried walking in and there was a three hour wait,” said another. “They’re booking like a month in advance,” one friend told me. It was so hard to get reservations at Che Fico when it first opened that I didn’t even try.
