Gravy runs in my veins. Tomato gravy. The kind that starts out at 8 a.m. on a stovetop and is still gently bubbling away come 5 p.m., slippery with fat from meatballs and sausages braised to unparalleled levels of tenderness. I am only half Italian, but it is certainly the louder half, descended from uncles who pounded a dinner table to punctuate a sentence, a grandfather who made wine in his basement, and a grandmother who wielded a wooden spoon like a scalpel in the kitchen and a cudgel everywhere else.
Red sauce was the constant. Not just tomato sauce, but red sauce: the dishes, decor, drinks, shouted conversations, and emphatic personalities that make up the ineffable experience of Italian American culture. It began around 1900 with waves of immigrants from across Southern Italy, whose traditions melded and continued to evolve in American towns and cities. It is red-checkered tablecloths, long-simmered sugo, red wine, bitter greens, thin-crust pizza, Parmesan, pasta, and olive oil. It is a reshuffling of Italian ingredients, fused into a cuisine that is distinctly Italian American. It is vibes, and so much garlic. For me, red sauce has been the river that flows alongside generations of my family and through my own life, at every gathering, milestone, birth, and funeral.
Today I live just steps from Philadelphia’s Italian Market neighborhood, and a recent walk down 9th Street, where warming fires still burn in barrels and it feels like Rocky only just jogged by, made me realize that my entire life has taken place in a series of Little Italies. It started with my dad, who left Catholicism, a triple-decker house in Worcester, Massachusetts, and his parents’ dream of him becoming a pharmacist—but held on tight to Italian food. He brought me and my sister on countless trips into Boston’s North End, a neighborhood that feels like a distinct village within the city, revealing a portal to our Italian past via timeless cafés serving thimbles of espresso and pastry shops that smelled of orange and rum.
Looking back, it only makes sense that I too sought out the communities, restaurants, and even the specific pastries that have carried on the legacy of our Italian heritage for four generations. It was so instinctive I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Didn’t every student at Oberlin College regularly make the hour-long drive from rural Ohio to downtown Cleveland just to pick up a few cannoli at Corbo’s Bakery? Or wake up early all through their 20s for handmade mozzarella and cavatelli from Caputo’s Fine Foods in Brooklyn? What young adult doesn’t keep a wine journal full of carefully peeled-off labels and a handwritten record of who they drank what with?
Yet my kids have seen only fragments of the people and food that have defined so much of my life. After my grandmother passed, Italy no longer felt like the mother ship, and the younger generation’s Italian Americanness faded with assimilation. Red sauce became just one of many things on our menus. My kids have never done the chicken dance with 200 relatives at a wedding, can’t pronounce sfogliatelle, and haven’t had to eat an Italian feast followed by a Thanksgiving dinner in one sitting.
So one chilly week this past November, I decided to give them a crash course, inviting them along on a slightly unhinged 700-mile road trip to revisit as many of my life-defining Little Italies as we could. They gamely agreed, mostly because they didn’t have a choice (they’re 12 and 10) and my wife was on a work trip and unable to talk me out of it. This would be a red sauce pilgrimage. It would take us to cities I hadn’t visited in years, even decades in some cases. It would, I hoped, not just feel like a trip back in time, but a glimpse into how Italian American food continues to shape this country—and us.
The itinerary was ambitious. Setting out from Philadelphia, we continued north to Worcester and east to Boston’s North End, camping out on the floor of my mom’s apartment just outside the city, using her freezer to firm up ice packs for our ever-growing mountain of leftovers. Then there was a jaunt through Providence, Rhode Island, and New Haven, Connecticut, before heading back home. I took a separate solo detour to Brooklyn as well.
Here, I am sharing the best of the old-school, new-school, and must-do restaurants, bakeries, dishes, and neighborhoods we visited and loved during those four tomato-stained days. I am happy to report that the legacy of red sauce endures. Not just as an isolated set of islands, distinct from our wider restaurant culture, but happily mixing with it, and sometimes even reinventing itself along the way. After the trip my kids remarked that I had taken them to “hidden places”—the type they might have walked by without noticing but felt immediately familiar once inside. Because if you know where to look, Italian American food is everywhere, and its future is bright. Red, cheesy, and bright.
NEW HAVEN
Dissertations have been written about the nuances and strengths of Wooster Square’s various apizza institutions, all of which feature new-world evolutions of Neapolitan-style pizza. But we opted for the locals-only, IYKYK spot Zuppardi’s in nearby West Haven (a relative newcomer for having opened in 1934!). While the apizzas aren’t baked in traditional coal ovens, the casual vibe and charming lack of wait time were undeniable. Superb clam pie awaited us, with freshly shucked bivalves, tons of garlic, and a touch of parsley and chile flakes. Tomato pie, buzzing with Pecorino and oregano, is also a must-order.
Lucibello’s Italian Pastry Shop, open since 1929, boasts timeless charm and a pastry case that’s refreshingly minimal, so they can focus on creating fresher and lighter versions of classic Italian confections. Their “Napoleon square” is a wonderful improvement on the typical Napoleon, which can often be cloyingly sweet and dense. Lucibello’s version features two layers of puff pastry and pastry cream sandwiching a layer of tender cake. I also could not get enough of their plain baba, a tender spongy cake given a quick bath in rum-scented syrup, then thoughtfully wrapped in a plastic bag so it doesn’t leak through the box.
Frank Pepe’s opened in 1925 and is synonymous with the New Haven apizza style: crisp pies forged in a coal-burning oven for optimal burnished crusts. I don’t remember exactly when I first visited—some time in my 20s, en route from New York to Boston—but I do remember what greeted me: apizza Brigadoon, with huge rippling blistered crusts and an intensity of flavor I never forgot. Lines can be long, but experiencing the original is necessary at some point in your life.
PROVIDENCE
My father worked near Providence for most of my life and always came home with incredible prepared foods from Venda Ravioli, an Italian specialty store with an impressive selection of house-made pastas and, you guessed it, ravioli, in every variety. It’s located right in the center of Federal Hill, the city’s Italian district, where my dad’s favorite restaurant, Joe Marzilli’s Old Canteen, has sadly closed, but other great options—try Cassarino’s for classic red sauce dining—abound.
I first visited Al Forno, just outside of Federal Hill, as a teenager, tagging along with my father for a cooking class and wine tasting with then chef George Germon. The kitchen was way ahead of its time, incorporating a wood-burning grill and bringing an elevation to Italian American dishes that still resonates all these years later. While Germon is now deceased, his co-chef and partner, Johanne Killeen, is still in the kitchen part-time, putting her unique twists on a repertoire that feels new. Try the rib-eye meatballs with fedelini pasta, fried calamari with arrabiata sauce, and signature crispy-yet-chewy wood-fired pizza. The staggeringly delicious five-cheese baked pasta remains thankfully unchanged since my last bite of it 30 years ago.
Order one, or ideally two of the baked-to-order cakes or tarts off of Al Forno’s dessert menu. Our superb pear “cake” featured a thin pastry base plus a layer of light almond frangipane and a cushion of lightly baked pear, surrounded by crème anglaise. Our joy was tempered only by the fact that we had to leave the eight (eight!) other tarts on the menu untasted.
PHILADELPHIA
Stalwart Dante & Luigi’s practices a refined, white-tablecloth approach to Italian food that has been charming locals and visitors for well over 100 years. The menu is a greatest hits of Italian American classics, with standout lasagna (thin sheets of pasta cradling rich layers of meat and cheese, resting in a pool of luscious tomato gravy) and a number of dishes, like stuffed calamari and braciole, that can be hard to find elsewhere.
Don’t let Paffuto’s casual counter service mislead you; their inventive spins on Italian classics will astound and delight. A rotating mix of baked goods might feature their cereal-milk-flavored maritozzi (airy brioche split open to house a whipped creamy filling), while breakfast always includes panzerotti—a crispy calzone stuffed with items like scrambled eggs, cheese, and bacon. Dinner is a playground of refreshing charm and joyful abandon; expect fresh takes like cavatelli with pepperoni butter or spaghetti alla chitarra with crab and tomato gravy.
Book a dinner well in advance at chef Marc Vetri’s pasta bar, Fiorella, right at the top of the Italian Market. Upstairs features a pasta tasting menu, while the first floor is mainly bar seating, with a view of the greatest pasta show on earth. From signatures like rigatoni with sausage ragù or tonnarelli cacio e pepe to rotating specials like a squash lasagnetta and agnolotti stuffed with polenta showered in chanterelles, everything is made just a few feet in front of you. Their rocky road ice cream is like a barely set cool chocolate mousse ribboned with marshmallow cream and worth a trip on its own.
BROOKLYN
Court Street beacon Frankies 457 Spuntino could be considered old or new, depending on how long you’ve lived in Carroll Gardens, a pocket-size Little Italy that remains my favorite in all of New York City. When I moved there in 2005, it had just opened, and I was drawn to its growing reputation for red sauce preservation—with a slightly modern edge. My first taste of the pork braciole was a time-stopping Anton Ego moment that had me scanning the kitchen for my grandmother. Decades later, their cavatelli with hot sausage and sage butter hasn’t changed, nor have the excellent pine-nut-and-raisin-flecked meatballs. Oh, and get the stewed red wine prunes and mascarpone for dessert.
Lucali, the cult-favorite pizza spot with a perpetual line outside, opened Baby Luc’s slice shop in 2021, which offers light, airy, and crisp square pie and a much shorter wait time than their original location. Prefer a distinctive spin on a New York pie? Frankies recently opened their own slice shop as well. F&F Pizzeria offers a phenomenal chewy-thin crust. Try the Partanna with Pecorino, Calabrian chiles, honey, and shaved red onion.
Walk along Court Street as it changes from New Brooklyn to Old Brooklyn—past Sam’s, Caputo Bakery, and Marco Polo, until you almost hit the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. There, two excellent new restaurants, Cremini’s and Aromi, are continuing the Italian tradition directly across the street from each other. Aromi serves impossibly light Neapolitan pies alongside house-made pastas and starters, while Cremini’s offers crispy Roman-style pizza and specialties from the Marche region.
BOSTON
Set along Hanover Street, the North End’s quintessential main drag, Galleria Umberto opened in 1974, but I’ve only just discovered it. The interior is Italian social-club-cafeteria chic, with pastel murals, slightly grim lighting, and a long line of patrons snaking through the space. That line continues out the door and down the sidewalk, so get there as early as you can; a $2.25 slice of Sicilian pizza—perhaps the best food bargain in Boston—awaits. Hot from the oven with a light crust, a veneer of sharp cheeses, and just enough rich tomato sauce, it is extraordinary to eat one alongside a cross-section of the entire city. Just as good are the massive arancini, stuffed with a meaty ragù, mozzarella, and baby peas.
With red-checkered tablecloths, cushy booths, Christmas lights year-round, and stained glass pendant lamps, Tony & Elaine’s feels timeless—even though it opened in 2019. Virtually every dish came with, on, or near tomato gravy, and frankly, we were entranced by the full-blown dose of culinary nostalgia. Mozzarella sticks with sauce, arancini with more sauce, meatballs in…you get the idea. Eggplant parm comes lightly breaded, with thin planks of eggplant softened into a tender slab, and the orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage tastes particularly vibrant thanks to a superb balancing act from white wine and garlic. The only dessert they offer is the only one you need: a trio of crisp freshly filled cannolis with pistachio and chocolate.
For decades, Modern Pastry Shop has been our go-to for a wide selection of classic Italian pastries. Seek out their sfogliatelle, freshly baked whisper-thin pastry accordions stuffed with a custardy orange-and-cinnamon-scented ricotta. Their cannoli, filled to order, are also standouts—and have been the gold standard throughout my life.
An Upstate Detour
Hailing from Albany, I love the iconic hybrid cuisines of the “Littler Italies” nestled throughout New York state. Here, a few hyperlocal gems for those willing to drive a little farther north.
Chesterfield’s Tavolo (Utica, NY)
This is the birthplace of Utica greens, a quintessentially savory side of cooked escarole, prosciutto, hot cherry peppers, Romano, and breadcrumbs.
Pastabilities (Syracuse, NY)
Chicken riggies—a zingy rigatoni in creamy tomato sauce with hot cherry peppers (sensing a theme?)—is another upstate classic. No time for a trip? Find my recipe at bonappetit.com/riggies.
Lupo’s Char Pit (Endicott, NY)
Chicken spiedies, sub sandwiches overflowing with marinated and grilled protein, hail from Binghamton, New York. So does cookbook author Alyse Whitney, who swears by this cash-only roadside favorite. Don’t skip a side of the famous onion rings.
