The Pint Sized Palate – A Kid’s Take on New York Food

Three Girls Walk Into a Bar

By Churchill Stone

Bar Tizio

107 Horatio Street

My mother and I wanted to go to a new small place three blocks from my house. But there was a problem. This place is actually a bar, a wine bar with cocktails too. We thought it might have good food because it is the little sister of Barbuto which is next door. Would this bar let in a kid? And now Charlemagne wanted to come too. Would Barbuto’s little sister let in my little sister?

I looked up the rules of New York City on ChatGPT. I figured that if you serve food then you’re probably required to serve children. Wrong! I learned that any bar or restaurant in New York City can say “No children!” whether they serve liquor or not. Kids are the only group that have no rights at all. Zero. (Maybe Mayor Mamdani can fix this.)

My mother, my sister, and I all got dressed in barrel jeans. We would try to have a girls’ night out and so we walked over on a wet Tuesday evening.

When we arrived at 7:30 p.m. there was only one group of people seated at a table. Two parents and . . . a tween? Whew, I thought, kids are definitely allowed here. By the way, there are only about 12 tables and a bar. The lighting is a little dim but warm ─ and in Italian, “tizio” means “dude” or “what’s-his-name.” Whatever his name, we were happy to be out of the cold.

Alexander was our super nice waiter. In fact, everyone was very nice to us the whole time we were there — to my surprise, this bar seemed to like kids. Alexander told us that Tuesday nights are calmer, but Wednesday to Saturday get very busy, especially since it’s so small. Luckily we picked the right night to come.

The menu is very small which makes it much easier to order. We got the Tajarin Pasta which is from northern Italy. You can have it with caviar, but my sister and I definitely did not want that. My sister wanted it with a side of tomato sauce so we got that. We also got Meatballs in Tomato Ragu (a fancy name for sauce) and the JW Milanese Chicken.

So, the Tamarin is a butter parmesan pasta. It’s amazing — creamy, thick, and delicious. It was also very rich, so maybe a bit too much for one kid to eat herself. It was the best butter pasta I have ever had and I always order butter pasta in Italy and New York. My mother loved it too.

Then the meatballs arrived in a tomato sauce with tiny pieces of cooked tomatoes throughout. There were lots of meatballs, maybe eight, and they were the perfect size — they had a bit of green in them, giving them a specific taste that some kids may not like, but still that did not ruin them completely for me. Surprisingly, my sister, who hates green stuff, liked them too ─ in fact, she ate two the next day because there were so many we took the rest to go

The JW Milanese Chicken was crispy, tasty and quite big, so definitely something to share among two or three people. The sauce that came with it was also very good. It was an aïoli with eggs and Dijon mustard. That may not sound good, but trust me it is. The plate came with purple lettuce under the chicken. Now came our favorite part of the meal. For dessert, Bar Tizio has chocolate sponge cake, toffee pudding, and an ice cream sandwich. We ordered the ice cream sandwich, of course. But instead of bringing one ice cream sandwich as we ordered, Alexander brought two! We were thrilled, especially my mother because there would be no fighting. The sandwich was a chocolate cookie shaped in a rectangle with pink peppermint ice cream inside. It had a very wintry vibe and a taste which I really liked. Alexander also gave us some of their special spicy tomato sauce to take home which was so thoughtful of him (my sister was very happy and excited).

Bars are not for kids and never will be, but Bar Tizio is surprisingly kid friendly. I hope this article inspires parents to take their kids because I think they will love it as much as I do.

**** (Four stars)