Rezdôra – Flatiron's house of hand-rolled Emilia-Romagna pasta

On a stretch of East 20th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South, Rezdôra has served the cooking of Emilia-Romagna since chef Stefano Secchi opened the osteria in the spring of 2019. The name, in Modenese dialect, describes the matriarch of a household, traditionally the nonna who rolls the pasta dough by hand each morning, and the sixty-seat dining room is built entirely around that idea. Secchi trained in Modena under Massimo Bottura at Osteria Francescana and learned to shape pasta under Nonna Laura Morandi at Hosteria Giusti before opening Rezdôra with his business partner David Switzer. Since then the restaurant has earned a three-star review from New York Times critic Pete Wells, a place on the paper's 100 Best Restaurants list, and recognition in Milan as the fourth-best Italian restaurant in the world by Top 50 Italy. It holds one MICHELIN Star.

01The room and the setting

The dining room runs on northern Italian cues rather than Manhattan gloss: terrazzo flooring, blue Modenese-patterned tiles, wooden chairs and a bar that fills up fast and only mellows after nine. In the words of one longtime guest, the room is small but mighty, the team fitting tables into corners you wouldn't notice were there, the whole effect intimate rather than cramped, helped along by candles burning through the evening. A private room at the back has its own history of occasions — in one memorable August it hosted sixteen guests for a joint dinner with Hosteria Giusti, the Modena restaurant where Secchi first learned to roll pasta.

02The chef

Stefano Secchi was raised with a strong sense of Sardinian heritage passed down through his father's side of the family. He spent several years in Modena working under Massimo Bottura at Osteria Francescana, then perfected the craft of handmade pasta under the tutelage of Nonna Laura Morandi at Hosteria Giusti, before a spell with Michelin-starred chef Davide Palluda at All'Enoteca, just outside the white-truffle region of Alba in Piemonte. Back in New York, cooking at Marea, Secchi kept talking with a Los Angeles friend, David Switzer, about opening something of their own; when a small space came up on 20th Street, the two took it and chose to serve the traditional cuisine of Emilia-Romagna rather than a broader, safer Italian menu. Five years after Rezdôra opened, Secchi and Switzer added a second restaurant, Massara, built around the wood-fired cooking of Campania.

Insider tip

Book ahead; the restaurant is known to run full most nights of the week.

03The cooking

The kitchen's discipline shows in small refusals as much as big ambitions: the tagliolini al ragù from Modena is served without the herbs an American kitchen might add, because that is simply how it is eaten in its home town. The regional pasta tasting menu moves course by course through Emilia-Romagna's different pasta traditions in smaller portions, a format designed so a table can taste a little of everything rather than fill up on one plate. An optional wine pairing runs alongside it, a vegetarian version is available, and the kitchen asks that a full table join the tasting together, allowing roughly two hours for the meal.

04What to order

The signature is the Uovo Raviolo di Nino Bergese, a single raviolo cut open at the table to release its egg yolk, dressed with corn, chanterelle and black truffle. Grandma Walking Through Forest in Emilia pairs cappelletti verdi with roasted and sautéed leeks, while the Strozzapreti arrives in a tomato sauce from Emilia with red shrimp and chives, and the Anolini di Parma carries a traditional meat filling in a Parmigiano sauce. For the table, the Affettati Misti brings Prosciutto di Parma, mortadella, capocollo and guanciale alongside pesto Modenese, squacquerone and Parmigiano with tigelle, and the Parmigiano Reggiano Tasting moves through five ages of the cheese. From the secondi, Cow Grazing in Emilia Romagna is a sirloin steak with sauces from the region and herb salad, while two can share a 60-day dry-aged ribeye finished with olive oil and pesto Modenese.

05Wine and drinks

Traditionally prepared meat, fish and local vegetables are matched to a list built around Northern Italian wines. Regulars describe the list as broad and the pours relaxed rather than stingy — a cellar meant to support the food rather than show off beside it. The optional pairing that runs with the regional pasta tasting is designed the same way, a glass judged to each course rather than poured by the bottle.

06When to go and booking

Rezdôra keeps long, steady hours: Monday dinner from 5pm, lunch added Tuesday through Sunday from noon on weekdays and 11:30am at the weekend, and dinner service running nightly to 10:30pm, as read on the restaurant's listings in October 2026. By its own staff's account the room is always busy, no matter the night of the week, though a handful of walk-ins are still worked in alongside the reservation book — worth remembering if a table looks fully booked online.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.