Aria Wine Bar

There are a lot of Italian restaurants in the West Village, and many of those restaurants are prohibitively expensive or extremely hard to get into. Aria is neither of those things. This place is dark, cozy, and cute, and everything on the menu costs less than $20. The pastas are somewhat generic, but you might find that comforting—and it's not like you want to wait two hours for a table at Via Carota anyway. Bring a friend or a date. The brick-lined space feels appropriate for any sort of casual dining scenario.