Newsday food writer Erica Marcus visits Farina 00 in Franklin Square to talk about Italian American cuisine. Credit: Gary Licker

Italian is unquestionably Long Island’s favorite cuisine, and that is reflected in the longest single-category "best restaurants" list Newsday's food critics publish. How else to do justice to the miles of pasta, tankers of olive oil and tons of Parmesan that delight and sustain us on a daily basis?

We look for restaurants that distinguish themselves with service and atmosphere and — most of all — with food that honors the bedrock principles of Italian cuisine, no matter the region: great ingredients, simplicity and seasonality. (We always pay our own way and strive to dine anonymously.)

This year's list tilts in favor of eateries that focus on the regional cuisines of Italy, but also includes those serving the related but distinctive Italian American repertoire. Every town on Long Island has at least one reliable purveyor of chicken Parmesan, stuffed artichokes, Caesar salad and penne alla vodka — dishes that do not, ironically, exist in Italy.

If we are suggesting you get in the car and drive up to 90 minutes for a meal, it should be something special. And with that, buon appetito!

Erica Marcus

Credit: Newsday/Andi Berlin

Alessandro's

Alessandro Acquista grew up in his family’s Queens eatery, Acquista Trattoria, attended New York’s French Culinary Academy and eventually opened his own place, Sandro's, with his wife, Diane. They introduced a punchy Sicilian-American menu and, after giving the dining room a chic makeover, rechristened it Alessandro’s. This is one of the Miracle Mile’s culinary treasures. Eggplant is done in the Sicilian style — thinly sliced and layered with tomato sauce and cheese — and served in an individual casserole. Pastas, made in-house, are high quality, from the tagliatelle Bolognese to the lumache (shells) with sausage and broccoli rabe to a special of spaghetti allo scoglio (mixed seafood). Entrées include chicken or veal scallopini in all the usual guises but executed with real flair; the kitchen does equally well with steaks, chops and fish. Ossobuco with risotto alla Mlianese and veal chop Valdostana (with prosciutto and Fontina) are two specials worth hoping for.

Credit: Raychel Brightman

Autentico

In 2016, years before Oyster Bay’s current restaurant renaissance, Italian chef Francesco Pecoraro put the historic town on the culinary map with Autentico, an idiosyncratic Italian idyll. With its tin ceiling, whitewashed furnishings, vintage artwork and twining garlands, the dining room evinces a decorative whimsy that is also evident in platings that delight the eye as well as the palate. The menu, which the chef writes by hand (and then photocopies) changes frequently and includes virtually no concessions to the Italian American repertoire. You might find house-made spaghetti alla chitarra served with Mediterranean "vongole veraci" clams; golden risotto alla Milanese garnished with nothing more than a few precious strands of saffron, ravioli stuffed with ossobuco and dressed simply with butter, sage and Sicilian pecorino. Sicily is also the source of head-on shrimp that Pecoraro wraps with prosciutto. From Romagna: piadina (flatbread) layered with prosciutto, arugula and stracchino (burrata "guts"). Don’t skip dessert as the chef makes his own pignoli cookies, biscotti, sfingi (Sicilian doughnuts) and éclairs. Almost everything on the excellent, all-Italian wine list is available by the glass.

Credit: Stephanie Foley

Edoardo's Trattoria

Since 2022, Edoardo’s has stood out in Huntington as a singular expression of one man’s culinary passion and skill. Born in Ecuador, Edoardo Erazo trained in Italy before moving to New York where he worked at some of the city’s most celebrated Italian restaurants and opened his own. Edoardo’s intimate, bi-level space is no longer a combination cafe-market-sandwich shop-bakery-restaurant but now a softly lit bar and pair of tableclothed dining rooms. The menu changes seasonally, but you might well find antipasti such as baccala mantecato (whipped codfish) on polenta crostini or bresaola (air-dried beef) with grapefruit, pistachio and lemon. Among homemade pastas, linguine with shrimp and lemon sauce and pappardelle alla Bolognese are staples; you might luck into tagliolini with Ossetra caviar. Secondi include Dover sole in a white wine-caper sauce, grilled octopus with bell peppers, roast pork shoulder with mashed sweet potatoes and caramelized pear. The dinner menu is available at lunch, along with five sandwiches on homemade focaccia. Erazo trained as a pastry chef and he produces a range of southern Italian confections rarely seen on these shores: Torta Caprese (rich-but-light chocolate-almond cake), delizioso di limone (a dome of sponge cake filled and blanketed with lemon cream) and torta soffice all’arancia (sponge filled with orange custard and covered with marmalade).

Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus

Farina 00

Ever since he moved from Florence to New York 25 years ago, chef Pierluigi "Gigi" Sacchetti has been on a mission to share his love of Italian pasta with American diners. Now, at Farina 00, he puts pasta on equal footing with the pizza (domain of partner Michael Russo) that has made this Franklin Square location one of Long Island’s top pizzerias since 2016. With a dining room renovation and a liquor license (there's an all-Italian wine list), the spot formerly known as Chef Gigi’s Place can be considered a proper trattoria — albeit a tiny, hard to find one whose dining room is tucked behind the takeout operation. Glory in regional pastas rarely seen on Long Island. From Campania comes zitoni (spaghetti-length ziti) with the long-cooked beef-onion sauce called Genovese; from Sicily, maccheroni alla Norma (named for the Bellini opera) with eggplant and ricotta salata; from Emilia Romagna, tagliatelle with Bolognese ragù and 40-month-old Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese; from Umbria, strozzapreti ("strangle-the-priest" twists) smothered with cream and sausages. You may well forgo all of these once you see what’s on the specials board. Sacchetti highlights fresh porcini mushrooms and truffles in their seasons and always offers one or two true oddities, perhaps a big ball of burrata figliata (filled, as in some sci-fi movie, with tiny balls of burrata) or culatello (prosciutto's suaver cousin) made from wild boar. All of Farina 00’s pasta is either homemade fresh or artisanal Granoro dried pasta imported from Puglia. Most dishes cost less than $25 and even the truffle dishes less than $40. Weekend bargains include a 42-ounce "Fiorentina" porterhouse for $75 and 44-ounce tomahawk rib-eye for $79.

Credit: Stephanie Foley

Felice

The only Long Island outpost of the Manhattan-based SA Hospitality Group opened in 2022 overlooking Roslyn’s duck pond. Partner Jacopo Giustiniani, Felice’s culinary director, and Roslyn’s chef Niccolo Simone, are both Tuscan by birth, and the golden-hued dining room evokes a rustic Italian fantasy. Tuscany produces some of the country’s greatest olive oils and many of Felice’s dishes are drizzled with its own proprietary oil from San Casciano Val di Pesa, outside Florence. The mostly Italian wine list includes a number of bottles from Fattoria Sardi, the restaurant’s own organic vineyard. As for the menu, it ranges all over the boot and into New American territory as well with starters such as fried calamari and baby artichokes, arancini (rice balls), eggplant Parmesan and Tuscan prosciutto with burrata. Pastas include gnocchi al pesto, spaghetti all’arrabbiata, pappardelle with sausage, endive and porcini mushrooms and tonnarelli cacio e pepe or carbonara; mains, chicken Milanese, salmon with sun-dried tomatoes and chickpea puree, branzino baked in parchment, sirloin steak and even a hamburger with Taleggio and bacon.

Credit: Linda Rosier

Gioia

After conquering Oyster Bay with 2 Spring, Four and Gimme Burger, chef-impresario Jesse Schenker's Gioia is a love letter to the Emilia-Romagna region, arguably the country’s gastronomic heart and unquestionably the wellspring of some of its most storied products: Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma, Mortadella Bologna, Aceto Balsamico di Modena, among them. All are deployed deliciously at this sliver of a restaurant. Vegetables get a lot of love here, from grilled cauliflower over whipped ricotta to humble green beans, which the chef lavishes with pickled onion, almond, capers and colatura (the umami-packed southern Italian fish sauce). Pastas, all homemade, range from spinach ravioli with sage in brown butter to a spicy sausage gramigna (G-shaped pasta) with spinach, tomato and cheese. The regular menu includes three grilled mains (chicken, salmon, steak) but every night brings a special "piatto del giorno" such as whole grilled fish, pork cutlet or duck breast. Dine on Sunday for the lasagna Bolognese. There’s a Negroni menu, as well as a spritz cart and tableside martinis (gin or vodka).

Credit: Linda Rosier

Grotta di Fuoco

Since Andrew Allotti opened this subterranean "cave of fire" in 2014, it has evolved from ambitious and promising to one of Long Island’s most dependable Italian restaurants. Once you get past a trio of Parms served with a side of rigatoni, the menu veers sharply from the cuisine of southern Italians in America and back to their roots in Naples, Sicily and other regions of the "Mezzogiorno" whose cooking relies not on tomato sauce and mozzarella but vibrates with lemon, chilies, capers, bottarga (dried mullet roe) and lots of fresh, seasonal vegetables. A zuppa of mussels is spiced up with ’nduja, octopus reclines on a bean puree darkened with squid ink and brightened by pistachio gremolata. All the pasta, from the spaghetti alla chitarra (currently with shrimp and uni butter) to the lumache (shells, now served "alla Norma" with eggplant and ricotta salata), is homemade. Heartier mains include veal chop Milanese, red-wine-braised short ribs with truffles and a porcini-rubbed 140-ounce prime strip steak served with aged balsamic and roasted potatoes. Pizzas, baked in a wood-burning oven, are stellar.

Credit: Yvonne Albinowski

La Bussola

Back when Pasquale Lubrano opened his restaurant in 1980, there was so much construction going on in Glen Cove that he fretted that "they’ll need a compass to find us," and promptly named the place La Bussola (Italian for "the compass"). He needn’t have worried; 45 years later La Bussola is a beacon for folks seeking classic red-sauce Italian cooked with finesse and served with grace. La Bussola is now run by Pasquale's sons Carlo and Marco, the chef. His other two sons, Tony and John, can be found at the family-style La Piccola Bussola in Huntington. This is an establishment that prizes continuity; virtually every server on the floor started as a busser, every cook started as a dishwasher. The hushed dining room — the white-clothed tables have plenty of room around them — is the perfect setting for a menu that Long Islanders know by heart: Caesar salad, fried calamari, stuffed artichokes, baked clams, spaghetti marinara and scaloppine (Parmesan, Marsala, piccata, Francese, pizzaiola, Sorrentino, saltimbocca). A textbook southern Italian lasagna oozes with mozzarella and the chicken scarpariello can’t be beat. Old-timers will revel in two dishes that have fallen out of fashion since the Reagan presidency, fegato alla Veneziana (calf’s liver with onions) and Dover sole, here served with olives, capers and tomatoes.

Credit: Yvonne Albinowski

Luca

Luca is all refined cool, with surfaces of white and gray warmed up by the rich wood of the furniture and a barrier wall, between the bar and dining room, made from birch tree trunks. But while executive chef Luke DeSanctis’s elegant, modern menu features many tweezer-precise platings, there’s a soulfulness to his food whose bold flavors draw inspiration from regional Italian cuisine. Dishes change with the season, but you will usually find the refreshing Sicilian orange and fennel salad, here gussied up with dates and pistachios; braised calamari with ’nduja (spicy sausage) and a carpaccio of Montauk tuna whose richness is cut by a garnish of capers, Fresno chilies and crunchy chickpeas. Pastas include a classic Northern Italian (i.e. light on the tomatoes) Bolognese, cappelletti stuffed with stracciatella and corn and torchietti (twists) with almond-jalapeno pesto. All the pasta here is made in house, except for the gluten free, which is available for every preparation. Composed entrées such as veal chop with cremini mushrooms and rosemary-vermouth cream, duck (seared breast, leg confit) with dandelion and chickpeas, scallops with romesco sauce, potato-crusted halibut tend to skew more New American than Italian but are no less delicious for it. Desserts are excellent, particularly the lemon tart.

Credit: Yvonne Albinowski

Nick & Toni's

It’s been the hottest spot in the Hamptons since 1988 and could almost be forgiven for resting on its laurels. Instead, Nick & Toni’s continues to excel and improve. The sprawling restaurant comprises multiple dining areas — inside and outside, all appointed with low-key elegance — and, thus, is equally appropriate food for solo meals at the bar, intimate dates within view of the mosaic-tiled wood-burning oven or blowout celebrations. One key to longevity is that the original concept — rustic Italian with an emphasis on local produce — turned out to be an enduring approach and that, 37 years later, the East End now grows more and better produce than its founders could have imagined. In the early 1990s, the restaurant established its own garden that now supplies up to a third of what the kitchen cooks with. The menu changes frequently throughout the year, making specific recommendations difficult. But you’ll always find inventive salads and fish, chicken, steaks and chops that pick up a hint of smoke in that wood-burning. Pastas are uniformly terrific and the kitchen faces protests when it tries to take the penne alla vecchia bettola off the menu, so addictive is this version of penne alla vodka made with oven-roasted tomatoes. This is not the place to skip dessert and, if you can get a volunteer, split the homemade tartufo for two, a caramel truffle center surrounded by homemade chocolate and hazelnut gelatos and sprinkled with almond biscotti crumbs.

Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca

Orto

"Orto" is Italian for vegetable garden, and few Long Island chefs care as much for vegetables as chef-owner Eric Lomando. The restaurant evokes the Italian countryside, from its pastoral setting in the tiny hamlet of Miller Place to its rustic interior, low-key professional service and, most of all, Lomando's intense focus on seasonal, local ingredients. In the winter, it’s the warmest, coziest dining room around; in fine weather, there’s no nicer lawn on which to dine. Bread is baked on the premises and served with a dish of fresh-and-fruity olive oil. The menu changes frequently but almost always features the deep-fried "farm egg" on a bed of polenta and graced with smoked pork in a bacon broth and a stellar fritto misto of shrimp, clams, calamari and skate. Two other stalwarts are the lasagna Bolognese and eggplant Parmesan, both served piping hot in their own earthenware casseroles. You might find also malfada (ruffle-edged ribbons) with duck ragu and chestnut cream or squid-ink pasta with spicy shrimp. Hearty mains could include slow-cooked braciola with polenta and greens, pork Milanese with roast potatoes and Taleggio fonduta or chicken breast with salsa verde, feta polenta and broccoli rabe. Desserts are made in house and are highly recommended. Once BYOB only, Orto now has a concise list of bottles and glasses that are both interesting and well priced — or you can bring your own wine and pay no corkage fee. Cash only.

Credit: Yvonne Albinowski

Osteria Umbra

Umbrian-born chef Marco Pellegrini turns out Italian food of astounding purity and vigor at this occasion-worthy restaurant. The interior rocks with modern Italianate bling, but an ancient tradition informs the dominant design feature — a massive wood-fired grill-rotisserie, where slowly revolving birds and beasts lend their drippings to waiting pans of vegetables directly below. Pellegrini's wife, Sabrina Vallorini, creates all the pastas here, from the delicate basil-tinted ravioli stuffed with burrata and ricotta to the toothsome taglierini tossed with cheese and flambéed in a wheel of Parmesan — right beside your table. Other greatest hits include skewers of breadcrumb-crusted calamari, a Caprese salad topped with basil sorbetto, a bruiser of a wood-grilled veal chop and deep-dish tiramisu. Pellegrini serves his house-made bread and focaccia in Umbrian olive wood bowls and stocks a cellar of Umbrian wines that is probably unequaled on Long Island.

Credit: Yvonne Albinowski

Stellina Ristorante

Chef Fabrizio Facchini started his culinary career in Italy’s Le Marche region. Stellina, the chic little spot he owns with Oyster Bay residents Tom and Adriana Milana, has an open kitchen that boasts a pizza oven and a lot of finesse. Don’t miss the light-but-chewy pies that issue from that oven, or the fried baby artichokes with lemon aioli. You won’t find a more refreshing salad around than Facchini’s pinzimonio, paper-thin slices of beets, carrots, watermelon radish, and cauliflower with an olive-oil-lemon emulsion. The chef heaps glory on Italian manufacturer Pastificio G. di Martino's paccheri (giant rigatoni) with a suave golden saffron sauce marbled with pistachio pesto. The bucatini all’Amatriciana is as porky as it is tomatoey, with the sauce barely veiling the strands. The kitchen’s own fresh pasta shines in the form of pappardelle with ragù, agnolotti stuffed with veal and truffles and baked gnocchi Sorrentino. (Most pasta dishes are also available with gluten-free noodles.) Main dishes run the gamut from a roast chicken with rosemary and thyme to a 16-ounce veal chop served Milanese-style to a Tuscany-style porchetta made with roast Berkshire pork belly.

Credit: Megan Schlow

Talina

There’s regional Italian and then there’s Talina Osteria Romagnola, new in Babylon Village and focused almost entirely on the food and wines of Romagna, the southeastern portion of Emilia-Romagna on Italy's Adriatic coast. The impossibly cozy spot, formerly Molto Pizza, is all exposed brick and farmhouse wood, brightened with Romagna’s distinctive textiles and, suspended from the ceiling, rolling pins of the type that partner Pietro Faetanini's late nonna, Talina, would have used to make pasta. Faetanini mans the bar and the dining room while his partner (in life and business) Brittany Middlemiss aces her succinct menu. Here’s the place to try the great flatbread piadina, stuffed with a selection of salumi and cheese, and don’t miss the fasul all Faetanini, beans braised with pancetta and rosemary. Middlemiss’s pastas include strozzapreti (twists whose name translates to "strangle the priest") with Speck-spinach cream sauce or sausage ragù and breadcrumbs. There are spinach-ricotta-filled ravioli and a majestic pile of tender tagliatelle with beef-pork ragù and peas. After your pasta, you have a choice of turkey cutlet or a board (small, medium or large) featuring a mixed grill: sausage, lamb chops, pork ribs plus vegetables and warm piadine. Desserts include red-wine soaked pears and a chocolate espresso mousse. Faetanini, a veteran mixologist, gets jiggy with creations like a peanut butter and jelly espresso martini. Traditionalists have a number of Italian wines to choose from.

Credit: Yvonne Albinowski

The Trattoria

"Great things come in small, hard-to-find packages" could be The Trattoria's motto. Carved out of the back end of a hidden strip mall, the modest dining room accommodates fewer than 25 diners, and yet the kitchen packs more culinary firepower than those of most huge, opulent local Italian palaces. Chef-owner Steve Gallagher isn't doctrinaire about Italian tradition — you might encounter roasted cauliflower with tahini, pine nuts and mint or salmon with parsnip puree and Brussels sprouts — but his emphasis on clarity of flavor, seasonality and the primacy of vegetables get to the very heart of Italian cuisine. The menu changes frequently, but you'll always find house-made ricotta and sun-dried tomato tapenade to go with the excellent bread. The lasagna Bolognese, made in the Italian fashion with béchamel instead of mozzarella, is legendary as are the meatballs over polenta. There are old-school dishes such as braised tripe, baked clams and chicken Parmesan (which the chef resisted until the pandemic and now can’t take off the menu) and they coexist with regional classics such as spaghetti all’Amatriciana, orecchiette with sausage (house-made) and broccoli rabe, and brasato (red-wine-braised beef). Innovations such as pork loin with bacon-cheddar risotto or maple-mascarpone cheesecake pay off too. Once BYOB, the restaurant now has a good, value-packed wine list. Bring your own bottle (or six-pack) for a $12 corkage fee.

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