Tre Amici Ristorante (CLOSED)

This old-school red-sauce joint, which opened just a few blocks down from Bloomingdale’s—on a restaurant row otherwise dominated by upmarket Indian spots—looks like something you’d find on lower Mulberry Street. The grottolike dining room is filled with red-checkered tablecloths, a long mahogany bar and framed headshots of mob-role actors—the worst clichés of Little Italy. The menu touts veal “Soprano” and meatballs “better than Rocco’s” (an odd boast considering his eatery didn’t last long). The food itself is never artful, but it’s not really trying to be: The shareable antipasto is a glorified deli platter featuring what tasted like straight-from-the-jar artichoke hearts, along with mortadella, soprassata and—strangest of all—sliced Swiss cheese. Leaden gnocchi arrived gasping in cheese sauce so copious the dish seemed like a fondue. More successful was the veal “Tre Amici,” which combines stringy scaloppine with smoked mozzarella and eggplant. Old-fashioned tartufo completed the throwback.