Campo

El Campo had an incredible seared tuna sandwich that I still dream about all these years later. And oh yeah — truffle fries! Was so sad to see it close.

The name to this place has changed and here is my review of it from November 2012:

I’m pretty shocked at all the bad reviews! We had lunch here with my boyfriend’s parents and were pleasantly surprised. We had the french toast, the burger (which was tremendous!), and the pizza. (My radicchio sandwich was not that memorable, but everything else I tried was really good.)
They seem to have lots of specials during the week, being so close to the University, but I’d absolutely encourage people in the area to give them another try.

This use to be Campo, but changed it’s kitchen. Outdoor seating is nice. I had the spaghetti and my friend had the Ciibreo Cobb. The Spaghetti was ok as was the meatball. Nothing fantastic, but edible, after you added salt and pepper.
The cobb salad wasn’t quite a cobb. It was funny in that the waiter discussed that it had roasted veggies instead of the typical stuff that makes a cobb (i.e. bacon, blue cheese, etc). He proceeded to bring lettuce with beans and paramsean. It was hysterical. That had to be the most expensive lettuce I’ve ever seen someone pay for. 1 star, because that is completely unacceptable.

Slightly disappointing. I got the mushroom lingine and it had no life. It just sat there. Bland and unhappy. Damn, it was so bland. If it was a person, it would be that one girl at the party holding her drink alone, unsuccessfully making small talk, but when she gets you in a corner to talk about her new phone you make up some excuse about the bathroom and leave. Yeah. It was so disappointing. Things that were off:
–the bread that they gave us was focaccia, which was ok but very very small slices
–the napkins were dish cloths (this totally threw me off)
–bland, bland food. See above. Seriously bland
Some good:
–waiter was nice
–have outdoor seating
–they gave us lots of water

Please see my review of Il Cibreo (the renaming of Campo).

Having lived in Morningside Height for the past four years, I have to constantly reminded of myself that I didn’t frequent Campo for good reasons. During my family visits recently, I got to dine at Campo for the first time in quite some times.
For sure, Campo is a tempting choice when it came to its affordable price. Who could one resist the «three-​course lunch» special for $ 10? But I do have to state that I would not consider it a «three-​course» lunch; it would be more like an entrée with two sides. The dessert was literally a «spoonful» at most. The food was acceptable but not at all memorable.

I’ve been here a few times and never been remotely satisfied (sometimes it’s the only restaurant with seats, so my friends want to go there). The service is wildly inattentive, the food is bland and the prices are sky high for the quality you are getting.
But what I find most insulting is that they give you a dinner menu at lunch time on busy days. I asked if I could see a lunch menu, as it was 12.30pm (aka «lunch»), and they refused. This place is a moneymilker and isn’t concerned about anything but profits.
There are far, far better places in the area that are less expensive and actually care about creating a nice dining experience for the customer, foodwise and servicewise.

What happened to this place? We come here for the lunch special frequently but it appears as though something has changed recently. The overall quality of both food and service has dropped. Last time the service was excellent, today we never got our drink order and waited 20 minutes for our zeppoli (which, if you’ve been here you know are much better when fresh). It wasn’t exactly a busy day either. The salads have gotten smaller (and they weren’t large to begin with), the sauce on the spaghetti and meatball lunch special has changed completely (where are the tasty thick slices of garlic?), and the tiramisu wasn’t nearly as good. Different kitchen staff? I don’t know. Hopefully just a bad day; I know we’ll be back, as the lunch is a steal. I’ll happily revise if our next visit is better. Could easily be four stars if the service catches back up.

Mmmmmm… brunch
I should start off by saying that this is only for brunch. However, it was so good that we went Saturday and Sunday morning the first weekend I tried Campo. I may need to frequently pause during this review to wipe up my drool.
Day 1 we did all breakfast selections and day 2 we ordered just about everything. The goat cheese omelet is phenomenal, the breakfast risotto should not be missed, and the french toast was worth the walk in the pouring rain. Yes, I eat off my friend’s plates so please one go out to dinner with me if you like to share. Day 2 we got LOADS of the truffle fries, two of the pizzas, a burger, some breakfast foods, and calamari. Our crowd grew on day 2, but we could have finished all that with a day 1 crowd. It was all SO GOOD. There is nothing I can’t recommend.
I’ve purposely been holding out on the best part… UNLIMITED BLOODY MARYS OR MIMOSAS FOR $ 10. New Yorkers are damn spoiled. Being from the land of one price drinks (damn you Boston…), this was a HUGE treat for me. My 1pm buzz and the people I entertained in Central Park afterward most certainly appreciated it.
Alright… I’m going to need to go back to New York ASAP.

A really cool place. Glasses of wine are too small for the price, but the free bread with dinner is amazing. I had mussels as an appetizer which were very flavorful, a Cesar salad which was blah except for the fried crutons with melted cheese inside, and a hangar steak. The pasta dishes also seemed very affordable. I would definitely bring a few friends back here for dinner.

I’m a fan of their lunch special, tell ya what! $ 10 gets you a small soup or salad (get the soup), an entrée from a selection of, let’s say, 10 that includes sweet and savory options, and a teeny tiny dessert (get the tiramisu unless you’re getting coffee, then the zeppole might be good for dipping.)
I have been exceedingly happy with the spaghetti and meatballs and the blueberry pancakes, whereas my friends have liked the sandwiches and pizza and burgers. So everyone’s a winner!

So I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse brunch experience in my life. I was already grumpy that morning after having to wake up early after a late night to do a group project. I thought, what can cheer me up? Of course, brunch!
So my friend and I go to a nearby decent looking place which happened to be campo. We sit down and wait and wait and wait. No menus no water. For a good 10 minutes! Finally, after asking 3 times, the waitress brings some menus. Alright fantastic. Now we’re getting somewhere. We ask for some coffees to start since we’re about to kill someone here and maybe coffee will make us feel less grumpy. So again we wait. Another 10 minutes go by. No coffee. Finally the waitress comes back with 2 coffee cups and a pitcher of coffee. She pours me a cup and pours about ¹⁄₃ cup in my friends and the pitcher is empty. Fail. So we wait again. And it takes her about 15 minutes to bring my friend more coffee. It’s like this the ENTIRE meal.
Getting service here is like pulling teeth. Never again. We tried to be nice because we didn’t want our food spit in but sorry never coming back. The owner/​manager was very apologetic when we left explaining he was in the process of hiring new waitstaff. Ok that’s great. Still not coming back. What a failure and waste of time.

While not listed on their website, this place offers a daily $ 10 3 course lunch. There are about 12 entrees listed, plus you get a tiny soup or salad and a choice of dessert.
The interior of this place feels like a French Bistro, yet its supposed to be Italian. Sort of odd if you ask me. They have pizza, pasta, burgers and omelettes on the lunch special. The portions are definitely smaller, the salad is tiny, and its about ½ a dessert. Either way, its a good deal for only $ 10. I ordered the fried green tomato sandwich, not on the list, and it was very good, but a bit overloaded with fresh mozzarella. The truffle fries are to die for though. The pizza that my wife ordered was mediocre in my opinion and small. Id stick to sandwiches.
Id give it a try for dinner, but the lunch special is the best value.

*** brunch review ***
There were some major highs and lows to this brunch experience.
There are some unique brunch items on this menu, like breakfast risotto and a new play on eggs benedict. The truffled fries are good!
However, the loud bass — at least in the front part of the restaurant — seemed very «un brunch like.» It felt like I was in a club! Also, the service was really spotty. Our waiter made it up to us in the end with a mimosa toast, which was really nice and unexpected.
I’d suggest *not* getting the bottomless brunch drinks unless you really plan on being there a long time. The bloody marys are definitely large, but you need to drink two of them to make the $ 9.90 deal worth it.

I used to be crazy about Campo. I would frequently go for lunch with colleagues and always order the arugula salad with salmon. Let’s just say that in the past month or so the proportion of lettuce to Parmesan shavings, tomatoes, and salmon has grown inordinately.
And also the service has been so lackluster… yesterday at lunch I had to remind the waiter four times to bring our coffee. And then it took a decade to finally get the check. It wasn’t even busy! I hate that.
I have also been here in the evenings for cocktails, which are always pretty decent… but the crowd is kind of lame. Then again the pizza is really kind of good. I don’t know to be honest. I guess if you are in Morningside Heights its a pretty good option, certainly an alternative to the Heights (ick, thinking of feet sticking to the floor and being swarmed by 19 year olds).

Don’t hate! Okay, I must admit my Campo-​partying cherry has yet to be popped. But I wasn’t expecting much when I went to Campo for brunch one fine day. I got the campo benedict with prosciutto and chili hollandaise sauce and had a couple of bites of my brunchmate’s salmon & poached eggs. Surprisingly yum! A well rounded $ 20ish brunch and filling. The eggs were cooked to perfection and i finished all my homefries.
On a different note, the family next to us had very messy and very picky children and the waiter spent many minutes catering the dishes to the two mini-​divas.

I went for a quick lunch with a colleague and it did the job (though I’m convinced the atmosphere is better than the food). I ordered the french toast– mainly for the novelty of getting french toast at 1pm– and it was drenched in a sweet runny nutella, and topped with carmelized bananas. The Nutella was weird, but the bananas were delicious– I sort of wish the whole thing had been a bit less wet and a bit less overcooked, but it was a sort of fun combination of food. More than anything, the atmosphere was nice– love the high tables– and the service was swift and courteous.
One small weird aside– the water here tasted very, very funny… either the glasses weren’t clean or the water is just, well, gross.

Oh Campo, when I came here in the spring to grab a quick salad before class, you delivered and it was good.
But the other night when I came with my classmates for dinner and catching-​up (we’re all trapped in some way by our theses) we were all disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, your ambiance was pretty nice and our waitress was accommodating when had to send back a dish, and asked to wrap another that was barely touched «to go» (apparently someones boyfriend doesn’t discriminate when it comes to pork). The butternut squash soup was woefully lacking in flavor. I rarely add salt to food, and I had to this time. The pork belly apparently wasn’t all that, hence the wrap-​to-​go. The Parmesan truffle fries (I’ve been seeing this more and more on menus, hmm) were OK, but not as crispy as fries should be.
The best thing about the meal? The risotto balls and the shared fig/​cheese/​arugula pizza. Oh and of course, the company of my lovely classmates.
Food — 2 stars
Atmosphere — 4 stars

The food was mediocre. I did not find the arugula salad to be very special and at least the chicken breast that they added was not dry. I enjoyed the bread. The oil dish they served with the bread was a little old but ok.
The service was nice enough at this non peak hour of 6:30 pm so I cannot say how they will be during peak hours.
Everything was just about ok. I wouldn’t knock it except I might have taken a point off because the bathroom was exactly the cleanest for a supposed to be nice place. I left the point in the score.