Savor Scout › Food guides › Pasta
How to find good pasta
Good pasta is about three things: the right shape, cooked al dente, and a sauce that clings rather than pools. A restaurant that makes its own fresh pasta is usually worth trying — but excellent dried pasta, cooked correctly, is just as good.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Al dente — Firm to the bite. Soft, swollen pasta has been cooked too long or held.
- Sauce emulsified to the pasta — Finished in the pan with pasta water so it coats each piece. Pasta sitting in a pool of sauce was assembled, not cooked.
- Fresh pasta where it matters — Egg pasta for tagliatelle, pappardelle and filled shapes like ravioli and tortellini.
- Restraint — Italian pasta dishes are often three or four ingredients. Overloaded plates hide poor cooking.
- A short pasta list that changes — Seasonal and focused.
What to order
- Cacio e pepe — Cheese and pepper. A simple dish that reveals skill.
- Tagliatelle al ragù — Fresh egg pasta with a slow meat sauce.
- Carbonara — Egg, pecorino, guanciale — no cream.
- Filled pasta — Ravioli or agnolotti, made in-house.
- Whatever is seasonal — Often the best dish.
Where to find Pasta
Pasta is mostly found at Italian restaurants, so that is where to look. Open listings put 26,218 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New York, NY 1,046 Chicago, IL 282 Los Angeles, CA 221 San Francisco, CA 215 Philadelphia, PA 187 Boston, MA 174 Las Vegas, NV 166 San Diego, CA 156
Campuses with the most within a mile
NYU 363 New School University 318 Touro University 266 FIT 247 The Graduate Center 244 Hunter 205
A few to start with
- Tre Sorelle — New York, NY
61 Reade St, New York - Boni Vino Ristorante & Pizzeria — Chicago, IL
111 W Van Buren St, Chicago - Maccheroni Republic — Los Angeles, CA
332 S Broadway, Los Angeles - Ristorante Allegro — San Francisco, CA
406 Hayes St, San Francisco - Dolce Italian — Philadelphia, PA
1437 Chestnut St, Philadelphia - Viga — Boston, MA
275 Washington St, Boston
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.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for house-made pasta, fresh pasta and al dente, and favours places where reviewers name specific dishes rather than portion size.
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.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX
Related food guides
Italian food, Neapolitan pizza, Mac and cheese