Caffe Linda

I have been told great things in the past about this little restaurant. Unfortunately those praises are misguided, or perhaps have faded. The server told us they were closing and perhaps it is for the best.
The service was good, when there was some, and the staff seemed disheartened and gave a half effort. The food was thrown together as if cooking a meal for your starving kids. I ordered the black linguini, and I got an oversalted, frozen lobster, and over cooked pasta dish. The sauce is the only reason it received such an OK mark. My parents, who were with me, were unenthusiastic, telling me that the menu had dwindled and what was left was only pasta.
Will unfortunately not come again.

Cozy and casual little Italian spot in the city. I asked the concierge at the Lexington to recommend a place that was casual but good, and she sent me to Linda’s. It is a simple, small and unassuming place, very friendly. I was going to start with the Caesars salad, but when I asked the waiter how it was he responded honestly that it was not the best. So he recommended the «Linda,» which was a nice combination. Of greens, artichokes, avocado and beans, with a light dressing, pretty good!
Then, since it looks like the right place to order this, I went with the carbonara. A great dish when done right, and they did a good job with it!
Seems like a nice family place, quite a few families with kids coming in.

Said one fellow diner «Best Caesar salad I have ever had.» We had the black pasta with lobster and shrimp — delicious. Others had the lasagna (very good), ravioli (devoured by a hungry 11 year old) and pasta with sauce and mozzarella (very very good). Mixed salad was well above average and sea scallops were scrumptious. Deserts were also good, especially the Tartuffo.
Good, not fantastic, value for the price. Good service — hopped right with the check when we mentioned needing to catch a train. Decent wine list that was not overpriced.
Best of all — management (maybe owner?) was so accommodating when we were delayed by over 40 mins due to a slow subway from downtown. They called to confirm we were still coming and held the table. If for no other reason than that — we will be back.

I was surprised with how enjoyable dinner here was. We had trouble finding a reasonably priced, not so crowded place for dinner in midtown east till we stumbled upon this little hole in the wall. Luckily we beat the rush because there aren’t many tables and it filled up quickly.
They start your meal off with complimentary bread and olive oil which is standard but also bruschetta which was unexpected. Thankfully the bruschetta was really good because the olive oil was super bland and underwhelming. Normally, a bad olive oil is a precursor for a poor meal but luckily this wasn’t the case.
I ordered the spinach and ricotta ravioli and it was a solid choice: very nice sized portion, not too heavy sauce, a noticeable yet not overpowering taste of spinach, and the ravioli tasted very fresh. The sauce though was bland and seemed watered down. Aside from the ravioli, the lasagna was delicious. Either one would make for a satisfying dinner.

I went there several times for lunch with colleagues.
The place is not very big but we never had any problems without reservations.
The bad part is that it can get very very noisy when the restaurant is full.
The good part is that the food is good. My favorite is the Black Linguine with shrimp and lobster ($ 21) which is incredibly good.
I have tried once their homemade gnocchis but did not like them (the gnocchis themselves are delicious but the bolognese sauce they serve with is not good).

I stopped in for a late dinner after a business meeting back in April and really enjoyed my meal. The restaurant is simple and quaint, the staff is friendly and the food was quite good. I enjoyed a San Pellegrino with my veal scaloppine — delicious! Don’t expect anything too fancy, but know they don’t try to hard and the food tastes great.

I suggested this place to my co-​workers after reading the Unilocal reviews and reviewing the menu. How disappointing! The amount of oil in my gnocchi was absolutely disgusting. I tried to move the oil to one section of my bowl, but seeing it all together made me want to throw up. I asked the server to pack the food to go and drain the oil in hopes that I would find it more appetizing later. Second go around was not any better– I just threw the whole thing out. What a waste!
My co-​workers said that their dishes were okay. No one said that they loved or hated their dish– the only reason for the two stars instead of one.

Went out for dinner with my family and we had a great time. My husband had a birthday so the server was very nice to put a candle in his desert :) The service was on a high level.
We had salmon, chicken milanese and chicken piccata.
I would strongly recommend this restaurant!

This place is great value, I don’t think you could get a seafood linguine with lobster and shrimp for $ 21 anywhere else. It’s a pretty mediocre seafood linguine though. The shrimp and lobster were pretty good (big, fresh, firm shrimp) but the pasta itself was surprisingly overcooked (too soft and I had clumps in mine).
Service was extremely slow, at one point it almost seemed like the chefs had gone and taken a nap. No food was coming out of the kitchen and we had been waiting almost 30m.
The only reason I would come back is the sorbet. I had a peach sorbet which is clearly homemade and comes in a fresh peach. It tastes exactly like you just took a fresh peach and made sorbet with it… So good!
Overall, great if you’re looking for seafood pasta on a budget and don’t mind the slow service. Just remember to save room for dessert!

I’ve come here a few times while on business in NYC, since it is right around the corner from my hotel. The atmosphere is warm and cozy, service is friendly, and food is great. I wish their wine list (by the glass) was more extensive, but they have about 8 – 10 choices that are a nice range.
The lasagna is just okay, the daily specials are the way to go. Tonight I had the spaghetti with seafood and spicy tomato sauce and it was delicious and rich! I think I ended up only eating half of it.
I recommend this little Italian joint if you are in the Midtown area.

I don’t know if it was because we brought the kids or what but the service was way worse than expected. Everything from slow service, to being moved from one table to the next, them forgetting the kids drinks, being out of certain dishes, etc.
So horrible, the food was good but as a whole experience I can’t tell you how disappointed we were. There was a family waiting outside and we told them to keep walking. What a sad night out!
(The ice cream desert the kids got was amazing, just to be fair)

This review is more of a 3.5 than a 3, as my visits here have been good, but my last visit was a bit lacking compared to the first experience I had here.
My parents live overseas, so whenever they’re back in the States, my mom is always craving Italian food or burgers — both meals that are hard to find where they live. I had spotted the reviews for Caffe Linda and decided to take her here for lunch one weekday.
She had the squid ink pasta with lobster and shrimp, while I had the gnocchi in bolognase. We also shared the caesar salad which was good, but nothing mind boggling. Both of our pastas were excellent, and we ended the meal happily — my mom saying we had to come back when we had a chance. The seafood had been cooked perfectly, and my gnocchi was pillowy soft and delicious.
Earlier this week, we decided to go back to Caffe Linda, because my mom wanted that black linguine with lobster again. Unfortunately this time around — the linguine was so incredibly overcooked that it had congealed into clumps. I had ordered the penne arrabiata and added sausage. The sausage was great, and my pasta was cooked perfectly. It was just my mom’s entrée that wasn’t up to our expectations, as we had it just the week prior. I was also disappointed in the paltry amount of sausage that was in my arrabiata — there was maybe one link that had been cut up into bits and added to the pasta. It was delicious, I just wished there was more of it.
I will definitely consider heading back, but asking my pasta be cooked «al dente» when next ordering the black linguine.

Had a nice experience here, and the food was unexpectedly tasty! The restaurant is definitely more family-​oriented with a lot of families with kids dining, so it might not be the choice for you if you’re looking for a more romantic type of setting.
I had the black linguine with lobster, and it was amazing! The sauce was so flavorful, and the dish came with basically an entire lobster =). My two friends were also fans of their pasta dishes, and everything came with a large portion, so you can have enough to take home for another meal!
The waiting area of the restaurant was a bit cramped, luckily we didn’t have to wait long for a table, and the service was a bit lackluster, so that deducted from the overall rating a bit. But it’s definitely worth a try for the great food!

For take out this place isn’t that bad.
I could totally smell that white wine aroma when I opened the lid of the take out box.
The sauce wasn’t as spicy as I anticipated, which for a heat lover is slightly disappointing, however I totally enjoyed eating it.
The calamari did taste a little fishy, but that is what happens when you cook with frozen calamari. When we were there ordering we could totally see into the kitchen, and I believe I did see some frozen sea food being prepared.
For 21 bucks, I don’t think the dish was bad, they were also really generous with their bread. I also really liked how they didn’t give me any weird look when I asked for something dairy free.
My coworker got the risotto and her feedback was also pretty positive. SO THUMBS UP TO THAT.
Overall, I guess this was well worth getting as dinner for overtime.

Been there twice with my father and sister in the past week. I know this word is extremely overused in reviews, but believe me when I say, DELICIOUS. The food comes very hot and extremely flavorful. The pasta is perfectly al dente and the menu contains a wide variety. I highly recommend ordering one of the specials because it seems like they put a lot of thought into them. I ate a rigatoni with sausages and peppers that was to die for. As an appetizer I recommend their mozzarella and tomatoes, it is a nice complement to the bruschetta that they give before the meal. Service is very attentive and friendly, plus they’re always around and never leave you searching for them. Give it a try and you won’t be disappointed, you’ll probably bump into me because I’ll return again very soon :)
Edit: The dessert, oh my god, try the dessert. Forgot the name but I ate a cocoa powdered ball of vanilla ice cream and milk chocolate, one of the best things that have ever come into contact with my tongue.

Listen to the Unilocalers when they said this restaurant is tiny. It doesn’t look tiny from the outside… hell, it doesn’t look tiny when you peek through the windows. But it’s tiny. Okay, not as tiny as the restaurants in East Village or your ****.
The service is extremely nice and attentive. So attentive that they made us wait awkwardly by the entrance for 10 minutes. That wasn’t sarcasm by the way… they focus intensely on one person… at a time.
I recommend the mozzarella appetizer — sauteed with mushroom and string beans. We thought the mozzarella was going to be the champ in this dish, but the mushroom and string beans took the spotlight with their rich flavors.
The veal scaloppine was… just okay. It’s 3 thin slices of veal in lemon sauce, which made it a tad too sour to my usual liking, but true to the heritage of the dish.
Caffe Linda is a safe choice. Sure it’s not the cheapest, but compared to other restaurants in midtown, it fits right in. Making a reservation online was simple and on the Thursday night we were there, it wasn’t particularly crowded. That said, it is a functional after-​work dinner place. The lighting is too bright to have a romantic vibe, so save the lovin’ for elsewhere.

Didn’t get to eat. It was late, there was supposed to be a 20 min wait but, bascially, none of the tables were willing to leave and get up — which I guess could be a good sign that it was a great meal but the place is TINY so, if no one leaves, no one can sit down. The hostess was nice but, in the end, we weren’t willing to wait.

[TL;DR] Very tiny Italian restaurant. Very good Italian food.
If your budget and your stomach will allow it, start with the Caprese. It’s so good. To expand our dining profile, we split a spaghetti carbonara, and a fettuccine w/​salmon. Both were excellently prepared and presented. The pasta was prepared al dente, as you would expect. The portion sizes along with the bread basket will have you going over your max limit if you’re not careful.
Service is friendly and excellent. If you’re a table of two, expect limited mobility where your elbows are concerned. You get packed in. Totally recommend this place for Italian food while in NYC. Thank you Unilocalers.
TIP: If you have to wait on a table, you can lean on the coatrack. You can also be smart about it and make a reservation on Opentable instead. Also, if it’s cold, you might want to state your preference to be away from the door.

Service: The service here was absolutely awesome. I had made a reservation for a large group of 12, and changed the size of the reservation two times, but they were still more than happy to help me change my reservation and were very accommodating. Water was refilled a couple of times throughout the meal. The waiter & cashier were both very courteous and polite, and didn’t rush us to pay.
Food: The food is what brings down the review to a 3-​star review. We were served bread two ways after we ordered. There was bruschetta and plain Italian bread to dip in olive oil. The bruschetta was quite flavorful, but the Italian bread required lots of chewing.
For the main course, I ordered a Roasted Codfish, which was on the «Today’s Special» menu. Portion size was quite decent, and presentation wasn’t bad. When I started to cut the cod, I was excited to taste it because the layers of the fish just fell apart by themselves. However, the texture of the fish really threw me off. It was rather chewy and stringy for codfish, to the point where I started to think that the fish they served was from the refrigerated aisle of the supermarket. The inside of the cod also was quite bland. The other parts of the dish were fine, however. The potatoes had a nice charr to them, with soft and warm meat. There was an abundance of spinach to help balance the meal. The sauce was flavorful with lemon, but I wish there was more wine to it, since after all, it was a lemon white wine sauce.
Ambiance: Quiet, a nice place to bring a date

Service is impeccable! The location is a good location. Its right off Lexington so accessible by the 4,5,6 on 59^th or 42^nd (Grand Central).
The black linguine is so good! One of the best dishes I’ve eaten. Compliments to their head chef (s). Will be back! Thanks