Manifesto
We did not come here to adapt
Why
New York can get pasta on any corner. It cannot easily get the version an Italian would recognise.
9 PM exists to close that gap. Seven recipes, cooked the way they are cooked at home and in the trattorie that never bothered to translate themselves. Ingredients arrive from Italy. The chefs are Italian. Nothing on the menu was softened for a wider audience, because a wider audience was never the point.
We are not opening a concept in the marketing sense. We are opening a kitchen with a short menu and a hard rule: if it cannot be done properly, it is not on the board.
Against
No seasonal gimmick, no limited edition, no dish designed to be filmed. Trends have a shelf life; a correct carbonara does not. We would rather be the place people return to quietly than the place people queue at once.
The room is built from aluminium, steel and worn black surfaces because that is what a working kitchen looks like. There is no decoration standing in for substance.
Founders
9 PM was founded by Andrea Di Pietro, from Rome, and Constantin Reisch, Swiss and Austrian. Two people who moved to New York, kept looking for the pasta they grew up on, and stopped finding it.
The intent was never a restaurant group. It was one room, seven bowls, done without apology. Andrea owns the recipes and the standard in the kitchen. Constantin owns everything that lets that standard survive outside of it.
How it works