Vapiano

This first branch of this rapidly-expanding Italian “fast casual” chain in New York, Vapiano fills a void left by Dean & DeLuca when that panini and coffee shop closed just a couple blocks down on University Place, and it will probably become to the neighborhood what Dean & DeLuca was: a go-to place for a simple lunch or dinner. What will keep it from closing like Dean & DeLuca did? Vapiano has a liquor license, a spacious bar and a knack for marketing.

The light-filled interior, with soaring ceilings and sleek Italian design throughout, sets the stage for what’s actually a very back-to-basics dining experience, though at first glance it seems high tech. After picking up a key card at the door, you take a tray and collect your meal yourself, selecting panini, salads, pizza and pasta from various food stations, where they prepare each dish in front of you and scan the card. If your college dining hall went gourmet, this is what it would be like.

While the Italian food here doesn’t compare to the city’s best Italian dining establishments, it’s very good for the price. Choose from a number of freshly made pastas and pair it with one of a variety of sauces. Though pasta is Vapiano’s specialty, they were out of three of them on the day we visited, so the ravioli with ricotta and spinach was not an option. Penne with Bolognese sauce ($11.95) would have to be the litmus test, even though it’s too wintry a dish for this time of year.

Vapiano’s is a classic bolognese with crumbled pork and beef stewed in tomato sauce with carrots, celery, fresh rosemary and basil. This is no Babbo or Lupa version – it’s missing the depth and subtlety – but it’s very fresh and pleasing. More alarming is the menu of “signature” pastas, one of which includes chicken, orange-chili sauce and bok choi, a blasphemous combination that would surely would be banned in Italy.

Other American “tells” include the huge serving size, which is about twice the amount of food you’d be served in Italy, containers of Parmesan, oregano and chili flakes near the pizza station and the staff’s weird insistence that I must want bread with my pasta.

Though it doesn’t exactly conform to the slow food-esque motto “chi va piano, va sano e lontano” (roughly “he who goes gently/slowly goes healthfully for a long time”), Vapiano pays much more attention to the food itself than other fast casual chains. Caprese salad arrives beautifully presented on the plate, and the chef asks if you would like balsamic vinegar before adding it – it’s not always part of a true caprese salad. Unfortunately the mozzarella itself is only so-so: it doesn’t have the tang of bufala mozzarella or the creaminess of burrata.

The elements of this new place that are the most Italian may not initially strike people as such: the focus on sleek design (even the take-out containers are mod), and the very Euro electro-pop on the sound system. So far, the crowd is more Euro and more downtowners-who-lunch than NYU.

Indeed, this place seems to be a chick magnet, and at certain points the sleekness verges on slickness. Once you know the founders of Vapiano once ran successful McDonald’s franchises in Germany, it’s a hard fact to forget. The food at Vapiano (handled by a CIA grad) may be radically different, with a focus on fresh, natural ingredients, but there’s a certain manufactured quality to the atmosphere, which strikes a balance between stimulating but comforting, familiar but exotic. And every Vapiano looks just like the 70 other locations around the world, so you always know exactly what your experience will be. Perhaps more insidiously, this place targets a market that believes itself to be above chains. As the website boasts, “Vapiano is a very urban concept for young professionals, consisting of over sixty percent female clientele.”

Vapiano is enjoyable while it lasts, but when you leave, you may feel a nagging sense of fast-casual remorse. The target market gets up from Don Draper’s bed, adjusts her dress and heads for the door.

Vapiano
113 University Place at 13th Street
New York, NY
212-777-9477
vapianointernational.com