Bastone in West Midtown gives you an easy alley-oop to kick off your meal and conversation with a mozzarella tasting. You can offer your take on your favorite cheeses on the tasting board (maybe you liked the smoothness and salt content of the housemade fatt' a mano) and discuss the potential pairings—the Italian-imported stracciatella is a nice fit, with a little sweetness from the honeycomb and crunch from the taralli crackers. More cheesy goodness makes its way into some of the other dishes, like the handmade pasta, which Bastone switches up pretty frequently. But we hope the fresh peach salad, which sits in a creamy yogurt bath and is truly more soup than salad, is a keeper—it’s pure happiness.