Harry’s Table By Cipriani Makes Market Shopping Chic On New York’s Upper West Side

New Yorkers have never wanted for Italian specialties shops, but New Yorkers have never seen anything quite like the new Harry’s Table by Cipriani (hereafter HTC), outside of the stunning, long-lived PECK in Milan, and far more appealing than the touristy New York EATALY stores. In its breadth of space alone—28,000 square feet—HTC sets an unhurried pace, and, while sometime in the future it may be jammed, for the moment the eight-week-old market is a civilized pleasure to visit, shop in and eat at.

HTC is located at ground level in the dwarfing, monolithic Two Waterline Square, near Lincoln Center, from which it currently draws most of its clientele. Since parking (outside of an expensive lot) is almost impossible, dropping by for those who do not live in the area will require you take a taxi or car service.

The sprawling food market is the first by the Cipriani family, whose legendary history dates back to 1931, when bartender Giuseppe Cipriani opened his Harry’s Bar in Venice on the first floor of an abandoned warehouse on a dead-end street off the Piazza San Marco. Small and decidedly low-key in its décor, Harry’s Bar drew an international crowd, including Americans who, until 1933, couldn’t get a drink in their own country.

Commandeered as a Fascist canteen during the war, Harry’s would re-open to even greater acclaim and a celebrity guest list that included Orson Welles, Ernest Hemingway and most potentates of Europe, all the while serving a small menu of what became Cipriani classics, like the bellini cocktail, carpaccio, tagliatelle alla gratinate and risotto with seppie.

Giuseppe and his son, Arrigo, refused ever to open another restaurant using the name Harry’s, but as of the 1980s, Arrigo’s son did open restaurants and function spaces under various Cipriani-related names in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Monte Carlo, Ibiza, Mexico City, Dubai, Riyadh and Las Vegas, with more in the works. It is the fourth generation of Ciprianis, Maggio and Ignazio, that is now overseeing HTC.

The sleek, airy space was designed by London-based AD100

interior designer Martin Brudnizki, done in terrazzo, subway tiles, brass, natural wood, globe chandeliers and blue and orange colors, said to be inspired by a traditional Italian street filled with local vendors, such as a butcher and cheese monger—though I know of no street in Italy that remotely has the New York swank of HTC.

As you enter you see a long receding space that curves around to the Bellini restaurant in the rear, with a splendid outdoor piazza set with tables and ringed with lights facing the Hudson River. Up front you’ll smell the Lavazza Italian coffee being brewed and out-of-the-oven pastries available as of 7a.m. Then there is a gelateria and pasticceria, where you’ll find the renowned vanilla meringue and lemon pie that are served in all Cipriani restaurants. As you move along you find a juice bar (which seems a tad out of character for an Italian food shop), then a place for signature salads.

Fresh pasta, such as ravioli and tagliatelle, can be purchased uncooked, or made to order for take-out or eat-in, along with a “Gastronomia” of Italian dishes like the Venetian baccalà montecato, artichokes alla Romana and lasagna alla bolognese.

By this time you are only hallway around: next is the stop for panini sandwiches, including the Venetian soft sandwiches called tramezzini. The bread selections are impressive. Then you come to the pescheria, stocked with a variety of seafood (though the offerings should be topped with crushed ice, not just sit on it). Carne comes from the on-premises New England-based Fossil Farms Artisan Butcher offering an impressive array of beef, lamb and pork, grass-fed, as in Italy, although corn-fed American beef has much more marbling.

Of course, there’s pizza in multiple variations, and then an extraordinarily beautiful case of cheeses, most Italian, and salumi. The Ciprianis have always had a caviar clientele, so they have a caviar and smoked salmon section from Caviarteria, although, by international law, Russian and Iranian Caspian Sea caviar is banned from sale. Here the offerings are all farm raised elsewhere.

If you’ve come by to shop, you can also eat at casual tables at HTC, with the food brought to you if you like, including, perhaps, a crudo tasting. A bright, glistening bar that evokes the original Harry’s Bar is a fine spot for a bellini or other cocktail or glass of wine before heading home or to Lincoln Center.

If I lived in this Upper West Side neighborhood, I might still go occasionally to the local warehouse-like Whole Foods or Fairway for non-Italian products, and I might go to Citarella for something special. But I suspect I might spend a good deal of time and money at HTC, starting off with a cappuccino and brioche in the morning, meeting a friend for lunch, or cocktails at six, and, if so inclined, to pick up some bread and charcuterie, maybe a little cheese, and, why not get a pizza, bring back some pasta, and for a treat a pint of gelato?

Had HTC had only these products, it would be easy enough to do. But it’s also such a beautiful space to linger in, I suspect this would become my neighborhood bar, grocery and place to get a bite of this or that or that or that, too. Since I do not live in the neighborhood, if I could find a parking space, I’d go there for all the same reasons.

And if you spot me in Venice, walking across the Piazza San Marco, you’ll know where I’m headed, sure to be greeted at Harry’s Bar by Arrigo Cipriani, now in his 90th year of good health. I’ll let him know his grandsons have a booming success at the new market in New York.

HARRY’S TABLE BY CIPRIANI

235 Freedom Pl South, at Waterline Square

212-339-201

Open daily; Caffe 7 a.m.-9 p.m.; Market 11 a.m.-9 p.m.Harru