As many dozens of times as I’ve been to 2 Amys, I don’t ever remember having gone for Sunday brunch. Nothing’s really different because their special brunch items are limited to a donut, a bagel, and a croissant.
The place was packed shortly after 1:30, and there was a wait for a table anywhere – after about fifteen minutes, a two-top in the bar area cleared. Service was s-l-o-w.
It wasn’t a good day for the pizzas (I didn’t order any because I saw about twenty of them, and didn’t like the way the crust was looking), so small plates it was.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for the diner to control the flow of things here; otherwise, you’ll get everything brought whenever it’s ready, and I wish I’d requested that the Oven-Roasted Olives ($4.95) be brought out early because towards the end of the meal, they have limited utility. This is the first time I remember seeing this dish being served in a white bowl, as opposed to the ceramic vessel in which it’s baked – this is much to its detriment, I’m afraid, but they’re still great olives (try some on your pizza next time, and watch out for the pits!)
The first to arrive were two cheese courses and some anchovies. 2 Amys is offering both Sicilian and Cantabrian Anchovies with Bread and Butter ($6 for the latter, $5 for the former). This is a lot of money for just a few anchovies, but it’s important to remember that 2 Amys has, and has always had, some of the very best bread in town, and that’s a vital part of the dish.
They went well with the always, always magnificent Burrata di Bufala (a bargain at $8 as long as you have some bread), and the Goat Bocconcino with Fig Jam (another bargain at $6), an entire medium-sized disk of goat cheese.
And the olives were useful with the Squid Soup ($7.95), a very bland tomato-based broth chock full of little rings and tentacles of squid, served atop a lone piece of bread to soak it all up (as it turns out, there was more than enough bread that came with the various plates – think twice before ordering it separately).
This was a very good lunch at 2 Amys, but one that I’d tweak if I did it again because the dishes were either extraordinarily salty (the anchovies and olives) or extremely mild (the cheeses and the soup). The only flawed dish (if you cast aside the olive serving vessel) was the soup which just lacked seasoning – I ended up dumping about half the bowl of olives into it. Still, any intra-dish incompatibility can be chalked up to diner error, rather than anything the restaurant did poorly. And to top it all off, the entire meal for two, including tax and tip, was in the $40s (this is what happens when you avoid the drinks).