Bar Pisellino

52 Grove St.

unlike other hubs of New York aperitivo culture, Bar Pisellino isn’t a restaurant. There is no dinner service, no power lunch, no reservations—no need, therefore, to squeeze your visit into some preordained window.

A West Village boulevardier can drop in anytime for what might be the city’s most stylish interpretation of the Italian art of drinking: salty snacks lined up on the glowing stage set of a bar (cacio e pepe patatine are potato chips’ higher calling), spritzes and Americanos ferried to and fro on silver trays, paper-wrapped bite-size sandwiches ready to sate any appetite that might develop. Form meets function at the triangular corner lot, where the generous layout favors outdoor seating on two separate stretches of sidewalk and, sooner or later, the whole world passes by.