Located inside the Wyndham Hotel, this casual Italian restaurant with very bright and open space welcomes you. Interior is simple with pop of vivid colors, and they have pretty good lunch specials.

We went for a lunch on a weekday, so there were lots of open tables. I feel like this is one of the hidden gem, as it serves good and affordable food, even though it is in the midtown. They start you off with their complimentary bread and special spread, which I am not sure what it was made of, but it had the consistency of hummus, and quite tasty.

Then we moved on to lunch. We ordered from their lunch Pri Fixe Special ($13.95), which includes choice of appetizer & entree. For the first order, we chose Minestrone Soup and Margharita pizza with 2 toppings. The Minestrone with tuscan kale, grana padano was ok, it had nice amount of veggies. I chose pepperoni and spinach to be the 2 toppings for the Margharita pizza.  The pizza was bigger size than I expected, but since it was thin crusted pizza, it was not too heavy. The pizza had nice flavor, and the pepperoni gave extra goodness, I wish if they had more spinach on it, but it was still tasty.

 

We ended our meal with cappuccino ($5) and espresso ($3.50), and they really know their coffee. It was almost surprisingly good. The espresso (didn’t take a photo…) was especially great, they use really good coffee beans there. The cappuccino was also good, great way to end the lunch!

If you are looking for a good Italian food in a midtown at affordable price, and be able to relax in a casual, welcoming atmosphere, I would say give this place a try. The service was pretty good, provided it was not busy when we went there. No complaints on their service level. I especially liked how bright it was in the inside, it makes the entire meal bright and fun!

Trattoria Bianca – 481 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10001