Jonathan Waxman Selects Manhattan’s Finest Meatballs
It’s no surprise that the author of a cookbook called Italian, My Way would be opinionated about meatballs; Jonathan Waxman, chef-owner of Barbuto, is certainly that. Having noted the explosion of meaty orbs in recent years, we enlisted Waxman to taste-test some notable balls around town, at Corsino, Frankie’s 570 Spuntino, Co., Donatella, the Meatball Shop, and the little owl. Though Waxman doesn’t keep meatballs on Barbuto’s regular menu (“It’s a little bit cliché”), he’ll occasionally serve them as a special “maybe once a month; it doesn’t have to be the same mixture all the time.” And as we toured, Waxman proved his meatball connoisseurship: “The marriage of the sauce and the meatball is the most important thing, because it really is a braised dish, almost a stew,” he explained. “A meatball sounds simple,” he continued, “but then you get into the science of it.” To Waxman, that means flavor, moisture, how it’s cooked, and yes, size matters, too: “Golf ball is the perfect size.” We asked Waxman to rate the various balls on a scale of one to five, and while “we never found our five” (as the toque lamented), we did have a clear winner. See our slideshow to learn which ball prevailed.


TOTAL POINTS: 3
!["Value-wise, they're kind of a 4, but everything else is a 3.5. I don't love the sauce; it's a little soupy. I like the size of these — these are a little bit more Northern Italian; they're really tender. [The garlic] is something I'd detract points on. And you have a bread guy, you get a lot of bread."TOTAL POINTS: 3.5](https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/28d/5bc/ae411d48f8b56cc079155d6a39c59cdee0-2-co-meatballs.rsquare.w384.jpg)
TOTAL POINTS: 3.5

TOTAL POINTS: 4

TOTAL POINTS: 4


TOTAL POINTS: 4