Best Cacio e Pepe in NYC: Six Bowls by Pasta Shape
Marco Reale · July 28, 2026 · Updated October 7, 2026 · 8 min
The best cacio e pepe in NYC by pasta shape: Via Carota's $27 tonnarelli, L'Artusi's $24 pici and four more Manhattan bowls, with prices, hours and booking.
Our picks for the best cacio e pepe in NYC are the two thick-strand versions in the West Village: Via Carota’s tonnarelli cacio e pepe at $27 (51 Grove Street, walk-ins always welcome) and L’Artusi’s hand-rolled Pici ‘Cacio e Pepe’ at $24 (228 West 10th Street). For a quieter room, Novità in Gramercy lists fresh tonnarelli cacio e pepe at $27 at 102 East 22nd Street.
That verdict is built on what each kitchen publishes, and the variable most menus mention only in passing is the strand itself. The dish is pecorino, black pepper and starchy pasta water, with nowhere for a cook to hide, and a bucatini order and a pici order are not the same dinner. If cacio e pepe has let you down before, the geometry is the likeliest reason. Six Manhattan rooms currently list it. Here is what each one uses.
Quick answer
Thick, hand-rolled strands: Via Carota on Grove Street, or L’Artusi on West 10th. The plain Roman spaghetti reading: Rubirosa in Nolita. Fresh tonnarelli in a quiet dining room: Novità on East 22nd Street. Bucatini, which carries more sauce per bite than anything else on this page: Zero Otto Nove on West 21st. A bowl at three in the afternoon: Tarallucci e Vino near Union Square.
Cacio e pepe in NYC at a glance
| Restaurant | Pasta shape | Price | Address |
|---|---|---|---|
| Via Carota | Tonnarelli | $27 | 51 Grove Street, West Village |
| L’Artusi | Pici, hand-rolled | $24 | 228 West 10th Street, West Village |
| Rubirosa | Spaghetti, handmade | Not listed online | 235 Mulberry Street, Nolita |
| Novità | Fresh tonnarelli | $27 | 102 East 22nd Street, Gramercy |
| Zero Otto Nove | Bucatini | $28 | 15 West 21st Street, Flatiron |
| Tarallucci e Vino | Tonnarelli | $26 | 15 East 18th Street, Union Square |
How these were selected
Every restaurant here lists a cacio e pepe on its own published menu, first checked in early August 2026 and re-checked in October 2026. Where a menu names the shape, I have used the menu’s word for it. Our selections prioritize rooms where the dish sits on the standing menu rather than turning up as a special, and they are spread across several neighborhoods rather than clustered on one block.
No scores. There is no single correct version either. Roman purists will tell you it has to be tonnarelli. Roman purists are also not the ones cooking on West 10th Street.
Where to order cacio e pepe in NYC
Via Carota, for the version you do not have to plan around
Via Carota lists it as tonnarelli, cacio pepe, at $27. Tonnarelli is the square-cut strand the dish is built on in Rome, thicker than spaghetti and rougher, which is what you want when the sauce is this thin. The room sits at 51 Grove Street in the West Village, and the restaurant’s own site says walk-ins are always welcome, which makes it the rare good pasta in this city you can decide on at 7pm. Hours run 11am to 11pm Monday through Thursday and 10am to 11pm Friday through Sunday.
Best suited to an unplanned dinner, or a late lunch that turns into something longer.
L’Artusi, for the chewiest strand on the list
L’Artusi calls it Pici ‘Cacio e Pepe’, with black pepper, pecorino and parmigiano brodo, and lists it at $24 as of October 2026 (it was $23 in August). That makes it the cheapest pasta on a dinner list that tops out at $38, a spread explained in what you are actually paying for when a pasta costs $38. Pici is hand-rolled and irregular, closer to a fat udon than to spaghetti, and it gives the dish real chew. The address is 228 West 10th Street. Reservations release on Resy on a two-week rolling basis each day at 9am, with bar and counter seats held back for walk-ins on a first-come basis. If you are bringing a bottle, corkage is $55.
Best suited to anyone who books ahead, or who is happy to eat at the bar on short notice.
Rubirosa, for the straightforward Roman reading
Rubirosa lists Roman Cacio e Pepe with black pepper, spaghetti and pecorino under its handmade pasta heading. Spaghetti is the least fashionable choice on this page and the most familiar, which is exactly the point. The kitchen also notes that its homemade pastas contain eggs except for the lumache and cavatelli, useful if you are ordering around an allergy. It sits at 235 Mulberry Street in Nolita and, as of October 2026, is open 11am to 11pm seven days a week. The online menu does not print a price for the dish.
Best suited to a table that cannot agree, since the same menu carries pizza.
Novità, for the quiet weekday version in Gramercy
Novità lists Tonnarelli freschi al cacio e pepe at $27, described on the menu as traditional Roman fresh spaghetti with pecorino and coarse black pepper. The strand is both the correct Roman shape and made fresh, which is rarer on New York menus than the wording usually suggests. This is a traditional dining room at 102 East 22nd Street, a block off Park Avenue South and considerably calmer than anything a few blocks west in the Flatiron. Novità does not publish daily hours on its site, so call before you build a lunch around it.
Best suited to a weekday meal where the conversation matters more than the room.
Zero Otto Nove, for bucatini with a Campanian accent
Zero Otto Nove lists a Bucatini Cacio e Pepe at $28, but the menu around it comes from Salerno rather than Rome, with a Rigatoni Salernitana at $30 and a Bistecca alla Salernitana at $38 sitting beside it. Bucatini is hollow, so sauce ends up inside the strand as well as on it, and it is the most forgiving shape here if you like a heavier bite. Ordering a Roman dish in a Campanian kitchen is less a contradiction than a different set of instincts about salt and fat. The Manhattan address is 15 West 21st Street. As of October 2026 it serves lunch from noon to 3pm Monday through Friday, dinner from 5pm until 9:30pm Monday through Thursday and 10:30pm Friday and Saturday, and 4pm to 9pm on Sunday.
Best suited to a table that wants pizza and pasta on the same bill.
Tarallucci e Vino, for the odd-hours option
Tarallucci e Vino near Union Square lists a cacio e pepe at $26, made with tonnarelli, pecorino romano and black peppercorn, and, separately, chips cacio e pepe at $10, which is the same seasoning applied to something you eat with a drink. The room at 15 East 18th Street opens at 8am Monday through Friday, 9am Saturday and 11am Sunday, and stays open until 10:30pm most nights and 11pm on Friday and Saturday. It covers the hours everyone else leaves empty, and that is the whole argument for it.
Best suited to a 3pm lunch, or the meal you eat because you missed the other one.
One aside on menus that move. In August 2026, Union Square Cafe at 101 East 19th Street listed Corn Fritters Cacio e Pepe at $14 under bar snacks on its dinner menu, with pecorino, black pepper and honey. By October its bar snacks had rotated to other dishes. It was never a pasta, but it belongs to the wider argument about Italian small plates and where the format works.
If the shape question has you rethinking where to eat rather than what to order, our neighborhood-by-neighborhood ranking of where Italian actually clusters here puts these rooms in relation to each other, and the six modern kitchens between Union Square and NoMad is the one to read if you want pasta served as a course rather than as a plate.
For the wider table, there is a sound argument about which Italian dishes survive being passed around and a course-by-course walk through an Italian menu. If you would rather judge a kitchen on one benchmark dish instead of this one, the chicken parm test is the other way to do it.
Before you go
Menus move, and cacio e pepe comes and goes with the season at kitchens that cook to the market. Prices and hours above were read off each restaurant’s own site in October 2026 unless a different date is given. Check the current menu before you cross town for one specific bowl.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the best cacio e pepe in NYC?
Our picks are Via Carota’s tonnarelli cacio e pepe at $27, at 51 Grove Street, and L’Artusi’s hand-rolled pici at $24, at 228 West 10th Street, both in the West Village. For a calmer room, Novità lists fresh tonnarelli cacio e pepe at $27 at 102 East 22nd Street in Gramercy.
What pasta shape is traditional for cacio e pepe?
Tonnarelli, the square-cut strand the dish is built on in Rome, thicker and rougher than spaghetti. Via Carota, Novità and Tarallucci e Vino all use it. L’Artusi uses hand-rolled pici, Rubirosa uses spaghetti and Zero Otto Nove uses bucatini.
Can I get cacio e pepe in NYC without a reservation?
Yes. Via Carota’s own site says walk-ins are always welcome, and L’Artusi holds bar and counter seats for walk-ins on a first-come basis. Tarallucci e Vino near Union Square opens at 8am on weekdays, which makes it the easiest option outside normal meal times.
Why does cacio e pepe go grainy at home but not in a restaurant?
Heat is almost always the culprit: pecorino seizes and separates when it hits a pan that is too hot, so the cheese clumps into strings instead of melting into a sauce. Restaurant kitchens finish the dish off the direct flame, using starchy pasta water and hard agitation to build an emulsion. Water that is too clean is the other common mistake, because a large pot leaves too little dissolved starch to hold anything together. Use less water than feels right, grate the pecorino finer than feels necessary, and take the pan off the burner before the cheese goes in.
