Top 21 Italian restaurants in Little Italy NYC

Go early to secure a table and don't miss the steamed artichokes or sweet, creamy vodka pizza. Gluten-free diners and large groups are especially catered to here, and the place has some pedigree: The pies were inspired, at least in part, by the super-thin crusts of Joe & Pat's on Staten Island, with a branch in the East Village .
This family-owned restaurant helped usher in the red sauce renaissance on Mulberry Street, offering simple thin-crust pizzas and classic red sauce dishes. Rubirosa's crisp but pliable tarts have a delicate char and a small ring of cookie-like crust around the edges. We have yet to go wrong with the plain vodka version, which features a layer of creamy, boozy tomato sauce and a gooey mosaic of fresh mozzarella.
David Farley David Farley is a West Village-based food and travel writer whose work regularly appears in the New York Times, National Geographic, BBC, and Food & Wine, among other publications. He is the author of three books, including “An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Strangest City,” which the National Geographic Channel turned into a documentary. You can find Farley's online homes here and here.

This fifth-generation Italian deli owned by Lou, Sal and Marie Di Palo (one of them is likely to run it) opened in 1910 on Mott Street as a latticino and sold freshly made mozzarella and ricotta. It now specializes in all types of imported Italian products, especially cheeses and sausages. Be prepared to wait, although there will be plenty of people watching and generous samples when you finally make the transaction. Mozzarella and ricotta are still made on site.
Family owned since 1910, this cuisine represents all 20 regions of Italy with imports such as artisanal cheeses, cured meats, olive oil and vinegar.
Long, long, long before the questionably named Italian megastore Eataly crossed the Atlantic and set up shop in Manhattan's Flatiron District, this food purveyor was selling superlative Italian food products in Little Italy. And he still does it. Stop at Di Palo's (200 Grand Street and Mott Street) for tender, juicy porchetta, meat-filled sandwiches, and antipasto salads.

This is the rare Little Italy restaurant that doesn't serve pizza and offers a little more elegance, making it a good place for a date. Consider an outdoor table for people-watching. Get the schiacciata, a garlic mozzarella tart studded with sausage and artichoke, then finish the meal with the ricotta cheesecake, which is admirably moist and flavorful.
Each room has a different atmosphere at Il Cortile. This is the kind of place where tourists mix with locals, and you can easily tell the former from the latter. Movie buffs may know that Il Cortile is where the cast of The Sopranos held farewell parties when a member's character was beaten up. But the connection runs even deeper than that. Former cast member Steve Schirripia used to live on the fourth floor of the building. The Bensonhurst native who played Bobby Bacala has his own table here, as does the late James Gandolfini. You can identify both by the framed 8×10 photographs of the actors upstairs in the courtyard room.
Puglia is one of New York's most famous Little Italy restaurants, with 104 years of history and counting. Locals and visitors alike come for the live music, old-school memorabilia adorning the walls, and tasty Italian dishes. This place is cozy, a little loud, and a lot of fun, so don't be afraid to get up and sing and dance with those around you.

In 1972, crime boss Joey Gallo was shot to death here during a dinner party, making Umbertos famous for generations before the Sopranos. The key is to order anything that contains clams. The small necks on the half shell are fresh, clean and ice-cold, as are the hearty martinis. Other good options are baked clams, linguine with white clam sauce, seafood Marechiaro (an assortment of red sauce over pasta), and fried calamari with the spiciest of the three sauces.
What: At this famous spot, clams on the half shell are fresh, ice-cold, and outrageously delicious.
Equally popular are fried calamari and baked clams. According to Ianello, Umberto's sells thousands of the latter during the San Gennaro festival, which is celebrated in the neighborhood every September. With fried calamari, you'll have the option of mild, medium, or hot sauce. These sauces are cooked for six hours and are mainly distinguished from each other by the amount of spicy Italian long and red pepper flakes. Regardless of which one you choose, the sauce will effortlessly cling to the rings and tentacles, giving you plenty of flavor. Resist the temptation to order marinara.

Aunt Jake's has reimagined the idea of ​​an Italian restaurant with a modern design and a menu focused on fresh pastas that allow customers to mix and match a dozen noodle shapes and just as many sauces. You can't go wrong with, say, tagliatelle and carbonara with egg, or four-cheese ravioli with herbs and pesto. There are gluten-free options too, and the list of apps is longer and more varied than most, meaning you can make a satisfying meal of mushroom rice balls or avocado toast and poached egg.
The elegant interior is a great place to sample the many handmade pastas, which is the specialty here. The sweet potato gnocchi and squid ink bucatini are particularly good. The restaurant allows diners to mix and match pasta shapes and sauces, so the combinations are endless.
What: Although it's a little more expensive than other Little Italy tours, it makes up for it in the portion sizes. If you don't fancy one of their specialties, you can always prepare your own dish!

Lombardi's was, quite simply, the place where modern pizza as we know it was invented. Gennaro Lombardi opened this pizzeria in 1905 (the original was further down Spring Street), using a charcoal oven to bake his large, lavishly topped pies, very different from the smaller, naked, moist pizzas of Naples. He considers the clam pie as good as those at Frank Pepe's in New Haven. The 16-inch pizza arrives covered in tiny bellies, with a lemon resting in the center. Coated with olive oil, the thin crust provides a crisp, blank canvas for the garlic-flavored, parsley-studded mollusks.
Gennario Lombardi opened his Soho store in 1905, the first pizzeria in the U.S. It's hard to attest to how pizzas tasted more than a century ago, but there's definitely more room after a modern renovation. Still, Lombardi's continues to bake a hot contender for best pie.
The pizza here is still excellent. He is thin. It's crispy. And it tastes spicy from the tomato sauce, exactly how New York pizza should be. Do yourself a favor and take advantage of the complimentary sprinkle of minced garlic that Lombardi's offers to accompany any pizza. It gives it an extra delicious touch.

Founded in 1999, Peasant was one of the first Italian restaurants in the city to prepare the majority of its menu in a wood-fired oven, which is a magnificent sight to behold at the restaurant. From there they fly chickens, whole fish, merguez lamb and even a whole pig, which must be ordered in advance. Originally founded by Frank DeCarlo, he was replaced by chef Marc Forgione a few years ago, and there's a newer wine bar in the basement for more casual dining and drinking.
Peasant's always satisfying pasta dishes have kept this restaurant on Little Italy's best lists for years. Today, we head straight to their newly opened wine room, a candlelit space in the restaurant's former wine cellar. Much of the menu is served straight from the Peasant's open fire, with hits including lamb merguez, smoked linguine with clams, and pizza with sopressata and 'nduja.

Pasquale Jones, a sequel to Ryan Hardy, Grant Reynolds and Robert Bohr's upbeat, wine-laden Charlie Bird, Soho advert, is a touch warmer than its neo-Italian brethren like Café Altro Paradiso. That could be due to Reynolds' elegantly priced wine list or the royal glow emanating from a pair of wood-burning ovens in the open kitchen, which promise pizza inside. Led by San Francisco chef Tim Caspare, those roaring hearths produce one of the best pies in the city: the clam pizza, a puffy beauty covered in salty necks, wilted rapini, and a delicate garlic cream.
Talented chef Ryan Hardy, partner and chef at acclaimed restaurants Charlie Bird and Legacy Records, anchors this top-notch pizza and pasta-focused spot. Pasquale Jones' pies are Neapolitan and some of the best in the city, and the amatriciana pasta dish will take your taste buds back to Rome. There's also a deliciously creamy chicken liver starter.

The hazelnut ice cream here is creamy and nutty, or choose from dozens of other flavors, all made in the back room. Steeped in Victorian glitz, the bakery has been doing things right since 1892. The cannoli have a crispy shell, putting the soggy neighbors to shame, and the sweet ricotta filling has plenty of chocolate chips and candied citrus mixed in. for more? It crackles through flaky waves of puff pastry that envelop Bavarian cream in luxurious lobster tails, a derivative of Neapolitan sfogliatelle, filled with semolina and ricotta and studded with candied orange peel.
Displayed alongside cannoli and carrot cakes, this Italian bakery's rainbow cookies are our favorite. Ferrara has been serving delicacies like these, along with daily lunch specials, since opening in 1892.

This former Little Italy bakery has been selling crusty breads to New York restaurant customers and diners since 1903. Among the many carb offerings, you must try their line-inducing deli sandwiches, which feature roast beef on a roll of onion, eggplant parmesan and chicken with prosciutto and mozz.

Ask Brooklyn native and owner Adele “Bitsie” Gallo what to order, and she'll probably tell you that people come to Casa Bella for the pasta dishes. And they've been doing it since the 1980s. You can't go wrong with pasta verdi fruiti di mare, lobster ravioli or spaghetti Pescatore. The latter comes packed with seafood to the point where you can barely see the medium portion of pasta.

After entering Da Nico, you will see the bar and brick oven where 14 different pizzas are prepared. Some of those bricks came from owner Nicholas Criscitelli's great-grandmother's old store, which was located just down the street. From there, the narrow hallway leads to the rear dining room, where there is a striking glass-encased nude female sculpture recessed into the brick wall. But the best tables in the house are in the covered garden with skylight, which is accessed from the rear dining room.

La Nonna, which means "grandmother" in Italian, aims to remind customers of grandma's cooking. This upscale, white-tablecloth Southern Italian restaurant has been in business for thirty years. Before La Nonna, owner Perry Criscitelli ran Pellegrino's, remnants of which can still be seen both on the menu and throughout the restaurant.

Baked lasagna and artichoke ravioli are two popular pasta dishes. Fettuccine rossana was named after the current second-generation owner, Rossana Russo, because of her love of shrimp and asparagus. Penne alla norma is a nod to her father's Sicilian roots, while trofie al pesto alla Genovese is a culinary ode to Genoa, where she emigrated before leaving for North America.

Known to its fans as “the jewelry store,” this small Chinatown takeout shop shares space with an accessories counter. Still, it's worth a stroll for the cheap prices, succulent pork preparations, and crusty, chewy home-baked bread.

Emilio's is off the beaten path on the north end of Little Italy. Inside, you'll find a dining room full of character and personality with walls overflowing with framed photographs, which owner and chef Emilio Vitolo presides over at the front round table by the entrance. Bowie was a regular and you might see other celebrities like Lenny Kravitz, Rihanna or, at least on one occasion, Barack Obama. Food is fundamental in its simplicity. Start with fried zucchini or tripe marinara, then move on to a plate of fresh tagliatelle bolognese or linguine with white clam sauce.

Expect lines, a scene, and impressive Italian-American food that doesn't come cheap at this new destination from Rich Torrisi of the Major Food Group empire. If you can't get a seat, you may have time for a standing table with a limited snack menu.

What: With small plates in a cozy atmosphere, we recommend ordering the ricotta meatballs with mushrooms and Sardinian pecorino.

Manero's, named after Saturday Night Fever hero Tony Manero (John Travolta), has earned a reputation for having some of the best brick-oven pizzas in the neighborhood, with a fluffy, well-browned crust. . In addition to pizza, menu highlights include eggplant lasagna, fried artichokes, Caesar salad and "stuffies": baked clams stuffed with seasoned breadcrumbs.

At this fast-casual Chinatown concept from Michael Jong Lim, Hawaiian poké (raw fish salad) is inspired by Japanese ingredients and techniques. Sea-to-table dishes on offer include rubber-shoyu tuna with garlic chips, spicy hamachi with chilli chutney, and sushi-grade Scottish salmon with mayonnaise and Szechuan-spiced daikon. If you count carbs, you can swap out the rice base for vegetables and Asian herbs.

Bari Musacchio, Rubirosa's longtime general manager, tackles the ancient boil-and-bake technique at this upgraded restaurant. Musacchio's operation is, like the old days, small-batch and labor-intensive: Slowly rising rings of dough are placed on burlap-covered boards and turned in a turntable oven, which results in springy yet crunchy vehicles for spreads like beet-horseradish, cucumber-dill, and wasabi-tobiko cream cheeses.