Now that is home cooking!
Upper East Side Italian restaurant Caffe Buon Gusto has been quietly seating customers in an apartment round the corner when their dining room is full, cramming them into its two bedrooms, lounge and even hallway — stunning the unsuspecting.
“I had zero idea. They’ve a essential dining room, that’s where I assumed we’d be, but after we got there, it was a special story,” said Dylan Rozell, who was dyspeptic on the prospect of eating in a “bare bedroom” when he visited the East 77th Street joint on Valentine’s Day last yr with three friends.
“We kept going further back and we undergo the kitchen, they create us down really narrow stairs, then up one other set of stairs and next thing you already know, I’m in a walk-up constructing they usually open a door to an apartment,” the Staten Island native who lives in FiDi told The Post.
Rozell chowed down on his gnocchi with vodka sauce topped with burrata — which he said was “freaking delicious” — in certainly one of the 2 bedrooms of the apartment.
“Isn’t that crazy? There have been two tables in our room, and the room was small, giving classic Recent York City bedroom vibes,” he explained.
“And it was silent in there. Not even an oz of music.”
Other diners occupied other spots within the four-room abode.
“There was one table filled within the lounge after which one within the second bedroom,” he continued.
When Rozell ventured to the toilet, he was in for yet one more surprise.
“There have been beer cases stuffed in the tub. I used to be very confused,” he confessed.
Other patrons identified the “strange” seating situation of their reviews on OpenTable, where the restaurant boasts a 4.3 out of 5 rating for its ambience.
“We were seated in a back space that looked like an apartment. The ambiance in that room was particularly strange and quiet as we were eating within the hallway of an apartment,” noted a customer who dined there on March 8.
Caffe Buon Gusto — “Good Taste” in Italian — opened in 1988, and is housed on the primary floor of a six-story walk-up.
To the precise of the restaurant is the doorway to the residential constructing, where apartment No. 1 has been rented by the restaurant’s owner, Nando Ghorchian since 2021, in response to property records.
Gabrielle Gorman, who lived within the flat-turned dining room for 2 years until 2019 with a roommate, came upon the restaurant took over her pad after she saw a TikTok video in March which didn’t name the situation, which was first identified by East Side Feed.
“I used to be like, ‘OMG, that was my old bedroom!’” Gorman told The Post. “I used to be absolutely shocked that I used to live in that apartment.”
The apartment is conveniently situated near the restaurant’s kitchen, accessible through the constructing’s side door.
“That door was all the time open and you possibly can see into their kitchen,” she remembered.
Gorman said she was surprised that the restaurant — whose priciest pasta is a $42.95 linguine with lobster, shrimp, calamari and scallops — would shell out extra dough for the pad.
“I just think it’s fascinating that they may afford that apartment too,” she said. “By the point we moved out, the rent was as much as $3,200. After I first moved in, it was $2,900.”
The constructing is owned by Taormina Holding Corporation, based on East 74th Street, who said: “There aren’t any violations regarding the apartment. Moreover, the office has not received any complaints from the opposite tenants regarding the tenancy.”
In 1992, Ghorchian debuted a second Caffe Buon Gusto location in Brooklyn Heights. In 2023, he opened a 3rd in Hoboken. He had one other location in Riverdale, which has since closed.
He didn’t return requests for comment by The Post and staff on the restaurant declined to comment.
Shari Logan, assistant press secretary for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene told The Post: “Recent York City and Recent York State health regulations prohibit home-based restaurants,” noting that homes can’t be used as dining areas.
