It’s always gratifying to return to a place where you enjoyed a meal or a few—and to find, a couple years later, that the place is humming along just fine.  Admittedly, in the case of la Bottega Trattoria at the Maritime Hotel, there’s the nearly foolproof location: an al fresco dining plaza nearly two floors above Ninth Avenue and the hoi polloi hustling their way into the MPD.  Seated above the street fray, there’s a sense of insularity—as if those of us dining at the well-placed tables have come upon a slice of Capri in Chelsea.  And while in winter the interior dining room with its wood-burning oven is warm and cozy, la dolce vita at la Bottega is best lived while dining beneath a summer sky. 

The sweetness of summer’s bounty, for example, can be found in an insalata fava e scarola, a lovely mix of escarole, fava beans, pecorino Romano and mint.  Equally delicious, and perhaps even more evocative of Italy’s riches is an insalata carciofi con tartufo, a tangle of raw artichoke and radicchio, lusciously dressed with white truffle oil and Parmigiano.  The current chef, Bart Retolatto, also makes a toothsome spaghetti al pomodoro, a nod to the summer season with garlic, olive oil, tomato sauce and fresh basil. 

It’s nearly midnight.  Above us, the moon glows, while around us the lighting is low, as is the attitude.  Open since 2004, la Bottega has passed through its hipper-than-thou phase and settled into being just comfortably hip—not unlike that little trattoria you found along the Amalfi coast a couple summers ago…  What was its name again?