The Best Italian Food in the United States

Mike's Kitchen is a cash-only, cafeteria-style Italian counter tucked inside a VFW outpost in Cranston, which means you order at the line and eat among Rhode Island accents thick enough to need subtitles. Polenta arrives as a soft, custardy square under red sauce, with a meatball or sausage on top. Bring bills, expect to hear about the old days, and don't be surprised if a neighbor offers beach advice unprompted.

Richard's is the restaurant tucked inside the Inn at 500 Capitol, which means room service here comes with actual cannelloni instead of a club sandwich under a steel dome. The menu is Italian-ish Northwestern, heavy on house-made pasta, and the wine list gets taken seriously, with periodic wine dinners for people who enjoy being told about soil. Think date night in a nice shirt, not a weeknight in a hoodie.

Sandwich Hut is a takeout counter in Hope that builds Italian subs and treats pepperoncini less as a garnish than a core belief. The Allitalia stacks prosciutto, capocollo, pepperoni, and provolone under a generous drift of those crinkly green peppers. There are no tables to speak of, so plan on eating it on a walk, wearing some of it, and wiping oil off your jacket sleeve like a rite of passage.

Naturally fermented dough and house-made pasta are the baseline here, not the selling point, which tells you something about a neighborhood pizza and pasta joint on Larchmere. The chef built a loyal following at a food hall before opening this permanent spot, and the menu stays focused: orecchiette, mortadella pizza, chicken parm, braised short ribs with polenta. Casual enough for a weeknight, careful enough that you notice the difference.

Schiacciata, the flatter, crispier Tuscan cousin of focaccia, is the foundation every sandwich here is built on. This downtown Petaluma deli, market, and bottle shop loads it with prosciutto, porchetta, or a spicy spreadable sausage, then piles on broccoli rabe or burrata depending on your sandwich of choice. The shelves behind you are stocked with oil-preserved chiles and Italian pantry goods, so it's easy to leave with more than you planned.

House-baked rolls are the foundation here, which tells you a lot about how seriously this Italian quick-serve sandwich shop takes a chicken parm. The chef behind Lox, Stock, and Brisket kept the same formula, a tight menu done with real care, this time nodding to his grandparents' Sicilian hometown. Thick sheet-pan pepperoni pizza sits ready to go, and pasta comes with sausage or meatballs. Fast, focused, and cheap enough that nobody's pretending otherwise.

The 100-day dry-aged tomahawk arrives on a silver platter, which tells you everything about the room. Tutto Carne is an Italian-themed steakhouse in Little Italy, with chophouse classics like steak tartare and shrimp cocktail sharing the menu with bistecca alla Fiorentina and chateaubriand. The kitchen pulls its meat from a sister butcher shop, which tends to show. Forty-five seats keep things close, and the bistro vibe softens the splurge just enough.

Two Tony's is a big Creole Italian dining room in Lakeview where everyone ends up glancing at the next table's plates, and the portions guarantee you'll be carrying leftovers out to the car. The seeded bread arrives in baskets and does a lot of the damage before the entrees show up. Fried artichoke hearts, stuffed mushrooms, tiramisu, and a limoncello to close, in the manner of a last supper with a reservation.

The leopard-spotted crust on a wood-fired Neapolitan pie is the whole point here, and Vero has been packing Cedar Road over it for years. The space expanded not long ago, adding a bar and twice the seating, though waits still stack up on busy nights. Classic toppings, careful technique, and a room that finally has enough room in it.

Zarletti was here before Milwaukee Street figured out it was fancy, and it's been quietly setting the standard ever since. This is a proper Italian restaurant, the kind where the pasta is house-made and the osso buco arrives without apology. The room runs warm and the service is polished without being precious, which is harder to pull off than it sounds in a neighborhood that now has valet parking.

Exposed brick, wooden beams, white tablecloths, and soft lighting put this Foothills Italian restaurant somewhere between a neighborhood trattoria and a special-occasion dinner, which seems to suit everyone just fine. The enclosed patio runs quieter than the main room if you want to actually hear each other. The menu leans toward the kind of stuffed-and-sauced Italian-American comfort food that makes you immediately loosen your belt.

A gelato shop in Old Town Scottsdale where the owner brought recipes from his hometown in southern Italy and hasn't wavered since. The flavors run classic, almond with orange, hazelnut, milk cream, plus dairy-free fruit options, and the affogato is the move if espresso is involved in your afternoon. The crowd is half tourists already pretending they're somewhere else, and the gelato gives them a reasonable case.

Marmo is an Italian chophouse in Montrose Collective, the sort of place where a baby grand sits in the bar and a local musician plays it while you decide between a cowboy ribeye and a 42-ounce Porterhouse, both dry-aged. The sauce list includes porcini bone marrow jus, so the beef is not working alone. Wear something nice, order pasta for the table, and give the 22-page wine list the attention it clearly expects.

Montesacro is a casual Roman pizzeria that bakes its pies in ovals, which is less a gimmick than a reminder that circles are not the only legal shape. The crust runs crisp, bubbly, and light, and the menu is long enough that nobody at the table gets stuck with a compromise. Service moves fast and the room swallows groups easily, which suits the pre-show crowd heading to the Orpheum.

Two Italian men, both named Gabriele, run this Italian deli on Yesler Way, and the staff communicate in rapid, gesticulate Italian that could be an argument or a recipe debate or just Tuesday. The focaccia sandwiches are stacked with imported prosciutto and mortadella, and the 'nduja is made next door. Shop shelves hold Sardinian cheese, Calabrian honey, and bottarga for browsing. Vegetarians exist here, but they have to ask nicely.

Getting into this off-Strip speakeasy means ringing a football, which feels like a sentence from a fever dream, and then supplying a password you only get by booking ahead. A host in a vest and flat cap works the room while jazz singers handle the stage, and you can request an unlikely cover from the lounge. It's an Italian steakhouse in costume, so the red leather booths fill up with tourists.

Patio seating looks out over the rolling Ozarks with a sliver of Table Rock Lake in the frame, which sets expectations high before the food shows up. This is an Italian restaurant where the pasta is made from scratch and the wine list is long enough to require help. The chef trained formally and spent time on the West Coast before landing here, and the cacio e pepe and burnt Basque cheesecake suggest he paid attention.

Coastline is a First Ward pizza bar named for the saucy edge where cheese meets crust, which tells you the team has thought about this more than you have. It turns out wood-fired Neapolitan pies alongside thin, grilled Texas-style ones, and the bartenders are the sort who remember your order by the second visit. It's casual and cozy, with cocktails that take the evening seriously. Eater's list of Houston's best pizza restaurants includes it.

A roadhouse that means it when it says farm-to-table Italian, Giaco's sits a five-minute drive from Samuel P. Taylor State Park, which matters more than you'd think by night two of camping. There's a bar up front, a cozy dining room in back, and a patio when the weather cooperates. The wood-fired pizzas run a little bready, but creative toppings carry them, and the saffron arancini with Point Reyes truffle cheese earns its place on the menu.

The focaccia at this Italian sandwich shop and pizzeria is springy enough to qualify as a mattress topping, then loaded with stracciatella, 'nduja, pistachio butter, or artichoke cream. A deli counter runs along one side, stocked with mortadella, salami, and prosciutto that get hand-sliced to order. Roman-style pizza sits out in thick, dimpled slabs. Bring cash for lunch and a plan for a slow afternoon.

Home Slice is a casual Austin pizzeria where the pies come the size of a hubcap and the debates run to which Mario Kart character you'd room with. Order it by the slice if you're solo, or split an Italian sub, wings, and a Greek salad that somehow feels like a plot twist. It's counter-service beer-and-negroni territory, and shorts are the dress code.

Hypsi is the Italian restaurant tucked inside Hotel Daphne in the Heights, which means you can start with breakfast and keep going until a roaming mozzarella cart rolls up to your table at dinner. The room is relaxed neighborhood stuff, with a fireplace worth angling for and a negroni on the list. Dress however you'd dress to eat pasta near your own house, only slightly nicer.

Mano a Mano is a dimly lit Italian trattoria on Milwaukee Avenue, run by the people behind the neighboring Andros Taverna and Asador Bastian, so the block is basically a family reunion with better lighting. The pastas are made in-house, with seafood-stuffed shapes and a cacio e pepe, and the focaccia arrives with stracchino. Expect a wine list with some ambition and a mid-to-upper bill, so dress like you planned this.

Mart Anthony's is a family-run Italian restaurant on West Hubbard, in its third generation, and it began as a spot for the founder to hang out with friends. The walls are covered in black-and-white photos of regulars, so you're basically dining inside a very long group chat. Expect red-sauce classics from family recipes, a dozen handmade pastas, and a meatball salad credited to Nana. Come as you are, as the place intends.

The on-site cooking school with a loyal crowd of repeat students tells you something about how seriously this Italian restaurant takes the whole project. Pasta is made daily, the menu moves between classics and more inventive mains, and a separate casual cafe handles lunches and happy hours next door. It's a family-run operation that has quietly become a fixture on the island, without making a big deal about it.

The Italian sub here is stacked with salami, hot coppa, mortadella, and provolone on a flour-dusted ciabatta, and the bread does at least half the work. Morucci's is an old-school deli that's been a Walnut Creek fixture long enough that regulars actually comment when the line isn't out the door. A few seats inside, more outside, and the counter crew keeps things moving faster than the crowd suggests.

A casual BYOB pizzeria in a Gray Street strip-center suite, where a wood-fired oven runs around 900 degrees and turns out Neapolitan pies in a couple of minutes. The menu keeps going after the red and white pies, with New York and Detroit styles and a stuffed pie that's mostly cheese and ambition. Bring your own wine, since the corkscrew is the only thing between you and a very good Tuesday. Eater lists it among Houston's best pizza spots.

The crusts here crack audibly when you bite into them, which sounds like a small thing until you're at a table in Windsor wondering why most pizza doesn't do that. Pizzaleah is a NY-style slice shop where Leah Scurto handles the dough personally, and the brick oven leaves a char on the underside that keeps everything from going soft. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of Sonoma County's best restaurants. Hot honey and Calabrian chile pies share the menu with the unironic classics.

Neapolitan-style pizzeria next door to the famously pricey Frasca, which tells you something about the neighborhood and also about the price gap. The pies have that crusty-chewy pull that Naples devotees argue about endlessly, and the butterscotch budino has built a quiet cult of its own. The wine list leans Southern Italy, the salads are more elegant than a pizza place has any business offering, and the garlic knots make a strong case for skipping the entree entirely.

Potente is a fine-dining Italian restaurant across the street from the ballpark, which means the bar fills with people in jerseys making a plan for the evening. The spaghetti al tartufo gets its truffles shaved over the plate right at your table, a bit of theater that suits a place owned by the Astros guy. Expect linen-adjacent prices and a dress code of whatever you wore to the game, within reason.

The name comes from the Italian habit of dragging bread through whatever sauce is left in the bowl, and the kitchen here gives you plenty of reason to do exactly that. Scarpetta is a polished Italian restaurant on the Strip, the kind of place where you dress a little and the pasta justifies it. Tableside paccheri in truffle cream is a reliable splurge, and the agnolotti with short rib and bone marrow lands somewhere between rustic and indulgent.

The wood-fired oven runs hot enough that the Neapolitan crusts come out blistered and light, with char spots that mean someone is paying attention. Terún is a pizza shop on California Ave that has been a gathering spot for the Italian expat crowd on the Peninsula for a while now. The black and white dining room is spare, which makes the olive oil and the colors on the plates look even more vivid by contrast.

Tortello is a pastifico on Division with a storefront window that doubles as a live show, staff cutting and kneading dough for anyone who slows down on the sidewalk. The flour comes from Italy, and a master sfoglina was brought in to train the team, which tells you how seriously they take noodles. It's casual and moderately priced, with fresh pasta by the pound to go and a patio that fills up the minute the weather allows.

Toscana is the full-service, sit-down Italian restaurant tucked inside the sprawling Eataly food hall at Park MGM, which means you walk past pastry counters and pasta shelves to get there, which somehow works. The menu leans Tuscan and seasonal, the kind of regional Italian that changes with what's good rather than just what photographs well. It's a proper dinner-out option in a building most people wander through eating arancini.

This is a neighborhood red-sauce joint on Vernon Park Place, run by the same family for ages and arranged so that nothing has had to be fixed. The menu lives on chalkboards, the wine list is long and priced like it respects your wallet, and the eggplant Parm and lemon chicken arrive in portions that assume you have somewhere to nap. Regulars treat first-timers like cousins they've been meaning to feed.

Maynard James Keenan, the Tool frontman, makes wine in Arizona, and Merkin Vineyards is where you can eat alongside it. The trattoria pairs Italian-leaning dishes with the estate's bottles, including the Chupacabra red blend, a grenache-mourvèdre-syrah that shifts slightly vintage to vintage, like its shapeshifting namesake. The 2023 took Phoenix New Times' top Arizona red. It's the kind of place that makes the whole "rock star winemaker" premise feel less gimmicky than it sounds.

The pizza here is long, rectangular, and crust-heavy enough that it reads more like an open-faced sandwich than a pie, which tells you something about the kitchen's priorities. Sacro Bosco is an Italian-leaning dinner spot sharing space with Temple Pastries, and chef Christina Wood brings an almost artistic fussiness to a small, seasonal menu. The housemade ricotta alone has been called one of Seattle's best bites this year, and looking at the plate, you'd believe it.

Greyhound statues loom over a room that looks like a wealthy socialite grandmother's vacation home, which is exactly the vibe Quality Branded, the group behind Don Angie, was going for. This maximalist Italian restaurant moved into the old Palm Steakhouse space and brought the New York original's cheeky energy with it. Daily-made pastas, a seafood tower, and roasted garlic babka that people apparently talk about unprompted fill out a menu that never takes itself too seriously.

A converted tourist kiosk steps from the Air and Space Museum that happens to be the only place on the National Mall where you can order a glass of wine with your pizza. The team behind Sonny's Pizza runs this casual counter, pouring natural wine, beer, and spritzes alongside grandma-style pan slices and focaccia sandwiches. Mornings lean espresso and pastries. The footnote writes itself: museum gift shops sell astronaut ice cream; this place sells Aperol spritzes.

This is a red-sauce Italian joint a block off the Strip, with celebrity headshots, old records, and a wedding's worth of chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling. The kitsch is not subtle, and it suits big, loud group dinners where nobody checks the menu prices. Entrees come in under $50 and include unlimited house red and white, which is the real plot of the evening. Plan on leftovers and a lively walk back.

Bencotto is a sit-down Italian restaurant in Little Italy, run by a Milanese kitchen with no interest in reinventing lasagna. The showpiece is pasta tossed inside a giant wheel of Parmesan, which is exactly as theatrical as it sounds. Expect housemade noodles, ossobuco, and a pink pancetta sauce, plus a weekday happy hour where the Aperol spritzes are cheap enough to make the early start feel like good judgment.

Cafe Bionda is a red-sauce Italian American spot on South State, where the menu still runs on rigatoni in Nonna's gravy and a carbonara that knows what it is. The bar got bigger after the 2022 reopening, and happy hour now draws a loud, cheerful crowd for $9 cocktails and $10 fried things. The lasagna is enormous and takes half an hour, so order it early and have a second cocktail.

Civico 1845 is a small Little Italy trattoria that does Calabrian cooking, with all the pasta made in-house. It has been said to be the first Italian restaurant in the country with a fully vegan menu, which sits alongside plenty of meat, so the table that can't agree on dinner finally has a place to go. The room is homey and the service is warm, at a price that suits a casual dinner out.

Da Prato is a Tuscan restaurant in a floor-level downtown loft, in a part of Los Angeles where most rooms are concrete and echo. The handwritten menu draws on ancient love poems, so expect mozzarella melted over fig leaves and a dish description that involves nymphs. It changes with the chef's whims, and the pasta stays simple, which is the sensible move when the menu is already doing the flirting.