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Hours
Sun
12:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Mon
12:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Tue
12:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Wed
12:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Thu
12:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Fri
12:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Sat
12:00 PM - 12:00 AM
MICHELIN
Food and ambience
Local cuisine, Italian, Vegetarian friendly
“We had the veal special and tagliatelle bolognese that were both just out of...”
“Apps: baked clams, tripe Entrees: rigatoni bolognese, linguine with clams, vi...”
“The focaccia bread was superbly baked and the burrata super fresh and full of...”
“Come here for the best Caesar salad, broccoli rabe, and pasta dishes.”
MICHELIN Guide's Point of View
This unassuming Houston St. standard is an unsung hero, even if many walk past Emilio’s gold- and red-etched window and write it off as some run-of-the...
Read more on MICHELIN GuideDoes this restaurant serve Tuscan food?
Details
About
Authentic Southern Italian Cuisine , Established in 1956 New York City . Owned by Emilio Vitolo SR and JR
PRICE RANGE
$0.00 – $30.00
CUISINES
Italian
Special Diets
Vegetarian friendly
Meals
Lunch, Dinner, Late Night
FEATURES
Seating, Wheelchair Accessible, Serves Alcohol, Accepts Credit Cards, Table Service
Contribute
4.5
375 reviews
Excellent
254
Very good
61
Average
24
Poor
13
Terrible
23
Halie E
New York City326 contributions
Nov 2021 • family
Emilio’s Ballato 🥰 my second time here and it was even better than the first, it’s truly a frills Italian spot with your meatballs and red sauce. The meatballs were some of the best I’ve had in the city and it made the freezing cold 30 minute wait worth it. The owner greets you on arrival and the whole time it feels like celebrities are walking through the restaurant.
Tips:
-Always expect to wait (your party must be there with you or they’ll give your seat up)
-Don’t expect great service
-Expect amazing food
Written November 30, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Allan S
New York City7088 contributions
Feb 2020 • friends
I have eaten here many times and always look forward. To the experience. Emilios sits at a table by the door and allows you to dine there. The cuisine is outstanding with sauces made daily , with love and care that is missing in most places. The fish and meat are done correctly and pasta is always perfect. The place is slice with active foodies, attractive models and people in the news and just regular folks who love food. Do not forget about the amazing desserts as well.
Priced for the quality you get and the old wRm charm with pictures in the wall. You cannot go wrong. No reservations. Unless you know someone
Written February 9, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
midwestwanderer30
Minnesota34 contributions
Dec 2021 • couples
We arrived the neighborhood from the airport and were hungry. Hoping to score a great meal we looked on Trip Advisor and stumbled upon this Michelin-starred Italian restaurant. Heeding advice to arrive early, we zoomed over and were the third party waiting to be seated. The atmosphere was perfectly New York, the octopus, ravioli and cheesecake were phenomenal, and the service was confusing.
Written December 5, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
robert4travel
Yonkers271 contributions
Dec 2019 • none
A friend of ours took us to this place for dinner, scoring a table in the back room. It seems that this restaurant is a place to be seen, as the food is very expensive and overrated.
Granted, the Italian cuisine here is good and you can have a good meal (I did enjoy the Chicken Parm), but $400 for 5 people for 2 appetizers, 5 mains and a bottle of wine is just too expensive for what you get. And while the food was good, I had better elsewhere. The service was good, no complaints there.
Price - quality is not good here, and for that reason I won't be back.
Written January 6, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
K L
Houston19 contributions
Nov 2019 • none
We have been here 4 times. The first 2 were very good. The last 2 we were treated like dogs. I can excuse bad food once. The last time we we were there my wife had a fly in her drink and the waiter said it wasn’t an insect. Later she was eating focaccia and there was a napkin in it. I called the grumpy owner over and he said she must have picked up her napkin and eaten it. He then tried to stare me down for 30 minutes. He was unsuccessful. There are way too many places to eat in NYC to have to put up with Ballato’s nonsense.Go anywhere else.
Written May 12, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Amber P
Bishops Stortford32 contributions
Feb 2020 • none
We went here for my 30th and Valentines meal and they accommodated us no problem without a booking.
The restaurant has a real authentic and simple vibe - this completely matched the food.
Don't get me wrong, it was delicious but I do think it was slightly overpriced for what you get.
All the same, I would still go back at the service was so good!
Written February 19, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sharon G
2 contributions
Dec 2023 • friends
TLDR: do not attempt to eat here if you are not a regular diner at the restaurant. We had heard great things about this restaurant and it seems many others had too. When we arrived around 6.30pm the restaurant was full and there were 8 other couples lined up outside. We decided to wait since they do not take reservations, calculating that the most we would probably have to wait would be about an hour. What we didn’t realize at that time was that they have a backdoor process for family, friends and regular diners. So diners would arrive, talk to the servers and then walk around the back of the building and get right in. We waited over 2.5 hours to get in to eat!!! We are not unreasonable and whilst we completely understand that a restaurant wants to take care of their regular and loyal clientele, we had no way to gauge how long we would have to wait and it was so demoralizing to watch a bunch of diners leave, thinking it was going to be our turn to get in soon and then having to continue to endlessly wait, while all the backdoor diners got seated ahead if us. It is a terrible system for the non regular diner and ultimately had we known we would have had to wait that long we would have left. The food itself is delicious, but definitely not worth the overall experience of trying to actually get into the restaurant
Written December 20, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
John Stewart
5 contributions
Oct 2022 • none
As a native new yorker I am extremely disappointed in my experience here. Went to dinner here after waiting 2 hours outside. It was 10:30 PM we wanted to share a couple dishes and a round of drinks but not each get our own dish, considering it was 10:30 PM and we had intended to eat at 8:30.
The waitress was so rude practically yelling asking if we knew that this was a restaurant and laughed in our faces when we didn't each want to get our own dish.
Ended up ordering more dishes for her sake, she proceeded to death glare and ignore us the entire night while rushing us through our meal and slamming dishes on the table.
Absolutely horrible service and will never return.
Written October 10, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Zigett
London1139 contributions
May 2022 • none
The owner, perched at the front of the restaurant with his pals, gave us the once-over as we entered before a waiter showed us to our seats. We didn't know what to expect, but had read some good reviews of this old school celebrity hangout (the walls are filled with pictures of celebrities who have dined here).
As it turned out, we had some of the best New York Italian food ever. The focaccia bread was superbly baked and the burrata super fresh and full of flavour. Our mains of lasagne and linguine alle vongole were perfectly cooked.
As we left, John Hamm (the actor) and his girlfriend were standing at the doorway eagerly awaiting our free table.
Will definitely be back.
Written July 20, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
figuraann
Denver15 contributions
May 2022 • couples
Ambiance was awful. The owner, I assume, since no one tried to restrain her yelled and was abusive to other diners. They were quiet, civilized and regulars, but she went off on them. She merely rushed us through our meal, said we had to leave by 11. We ordered house wine and she charged us $75 but when I asked she snarled and we just wanted out. Pasta was good but lots of places in New York have good pasta and a pleasant setting
This was inexcusable! Do not go !!
Written May 13, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Suzanne
Hazard1 contribution
Sep 2023 • family
Please please please understand what you are getting into before you go . . . Celebrities go here so it’s a popular hot spot. They don’t take reservations which is fine, we stood in line for 1 1/2 hours before we were seated and the food was worth it. The service was also good.
But the OWNER, he’s a curmudgeon (mean old man, makes curmudgeon sound nice)he walked through the restaurant, and as a couple from the UK complimented on how good the food was, (I sat right beside them) he did NOT Thank them, in fact, he ignored them, and made the entire experience not worth it at all. I felt so bad for this couple. They had waited in line for almost 2 hours and didn’t even get a thank you when they praised the meal, not even a smile or nod.
It was a very uncomfortable experience overall. The owner engaged in a heated discussion with an elderly man after he asked the man at the door about wait time.
Bottom line, food REALLY good, service good and polite, atmosphere tense and stressful.
Written October 6, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sabena S
New York City1316 contributions
Nov 2023 • solo
Spaghetti al Pomodoro is what I usually like to have when I go to a new restaurant. If the sauce is well flavored then I know that I should return to have other dishes. When I went to Emilio’s Ballato this is what I ate. I also had an appetizer of the broccoli di rape as I like butter vegetables especially when garlic is featured No reservations are taken here but on the weekdays the wait was not long.
Written November 9, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
GaryMage
Brooklyn127 contributions
Mar 2021 • family
I can't remember the last time I enjoyed old-school Italian food as much as I did Emilio' Ballato! Every course was cooked beautifully. Pasta was cooked perfectly al dente. Seasoning was delicious without being overwhelming.
Not exactly the most stunning looking room, yet I will be back! Taste wins out over ambience.
Written March 26, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
d0tmcd
Harrisburg82 contributions
Jul 2024 • family
Just go! Just do your tastebuds a favor, book a reservation (if you can) or go early and get ready to fall in love! The fresh table bread is unbelievably good. We had the veal special and tagliatelle bolognese that were both just out of this world!!! I was uncertain of what I wanted to order so they just brought me the most amazing spaghetti dish with cheese (no sauce). We could not have asked for a better meal outside of Italy itself. Go, go, go!
Written July 16, 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
barbsduck
Tucker77 contributions
May 2022 • none
My family went to Emilio's Ballato in May 2022 and just loved it. We are all either native New Yorkers and/or intense foodies who have traveled the world ... and we agreed, hands down, that Emilio's Ballato has the best chicken parmigiana in the world. It doesn't come with pasta, but is a large portion and you could easily share it and get one of their delish pasta dishes as well.
Written November 10, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
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