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Food guide

How to find good Italian food

Italy has no national cuisine. It has twenty regional ones that have been resisting each other for centuries, and the generic Italian-American menu — which is a real cuisine with its own history — is what fills the gap abroad.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • A short menu that changes — Italian cooking is seasonal and ingredient-led. A menu of eighty dishes available year-round is being executed from a freezer.
  • Pasta made there — Fresh egg pasta for the shapes that call for it, and good dried pasta — bronze-cut, rough-surfaced — for the ones that do not. Fresh is not automatically better; the right one for the dish is.
  • Sauce that clings — Pasta finished in the pan with the sauce and a little cooking water, emulsified. Sauce ladled on top of drained pasta is the single most common tell.
  • Regional identity — Roman, Sicilian, Neapolitan, Emilian, Tuscan, Pugliese. These cuisines differ enormously and a kitchen that names one is telling you something.
  • Restraint with garlic and cheese — Much Italian-American cooking is defined by an abundance of both, which is its own tradition. Regional Italian cooking generally is not.

What to order

  • Roman — Cacio e pepe, carbonara, amatriciana, gricia. Four pasta dishes from almost nothing, and a brutal test of technique.
  • Emilian — Bologna and Modena. Fresh egg pasta, ragù, tortellini in brodo, parmigiano and balsamic.
  • Sicilian — Arab and North African influence. Pasta con le sarde, caponata, arancini, granita.
  • Neapolitan — Pizza, but also ragù napoletano, seafood, and a completely different register from the north.
  • Tuscan and Pugliese — Grilled meat, beans and bread in one; orecchiette, vegetables and olive oil in the other.
  • Italian-American, on its own terms — Chicken parm, baked ziti, Sunday gravy. A genuine and excellent cuisine, and best judged as itself rather than as a bad copy.

Where to find Italian food

Open listings put 26,034 Italian restaurants across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

New York, NY 1,042 Chicago, IL 282 Los Angeles, CA 219 San Francisco, CA 214 Philadelphia, PA 186 Boston, MA 172 Las Vegas, NV 166 San Diego, CA 156 Miami, FL 152 Houston, TX 139 Seattle, WA 134 Washington, DC 118

Campuses with the most within a mile

NYU 361 The New School 317 Touro University 265 FIT 246 CUNY Graduate Center 243 Hunter 204 Baruch 198 BMCC 193 Pace University 143 John Jay 142

A few to start with

Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.

Italian food near campus

How Savor Scout looks for it

Italian searches read for regional labels and named dishes, and distinguish Italian-American from regional Italian rather than merging them. A search for cacio e pepe will prioritise a Roman kitchen over a higher-rated general Italian restaurant that happens to list it.

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Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

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