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Italian restaurants you'll love

Italian

Top Italian restaurants

Authentic Italian cuisine is distinct from the American Italian foods we've come to know and love, like pizza, calzones, spaghetti, and meatballs. The difference is that Italian food contains a variety of ingredients not featured in Italian American dishes.

Aromatic cheeses, olive oils, capers, and balsamic vinegar are a few examples of what separates the two cuisine styles. If you travel to Italy, you will get pizza and spaghetti, but they won't be the same dishes. For starters, pizza isn’t served by the slice in Italy, and it’s tradition to eat it immediately after it comes out of the oven, ideally still steaming. But here in America, we prefer to let our pizza cool down for a few minutes and serve it by the slice. That’s just one example of how different Italian and Italian American cuisine are compared to one another.

And let’s not forget about the wines that hold it all together. Robust, big, and tannic chianti and cabernet sauvignon go great with lasagna and osso buco. If you're having something like spaghetti alla carbonara, reach for a fruity white wine instead.