100 Best Italian Restaurants

Village Voice food critic Robert Sietsema has compiled his list of 100 Best Italian Restaurants in New York City. An impressive feat considering there are an estimated 2,500 Italian restaurants citywide. Sietsema writes:

From humble hero shops up to restaurants of the trattoria level, this list represents my ranking of New York's greatest Italian dining establishments. Culled from an estimated 2,500 Italian eateries citywide, every place on my list possesses excellence in one form or another. In creating it, I paid particular attention to the unsung heroes of the local food chain, the pizza parlors. One afternoon, huffing and puffing on my bike, I visited 17 in upper Manhattan, hoping to find a place as unpretentiously good as DiFara's (#13). I think I almost did: George's (#64). How can a lowly neighborhood pizzeria be better than a destination bistro that gooses its linguine with porcini and truffles? Try a lasagna slice at San Cono (#5) or the tripe and peas at Lodomini's (#9) and find out!

Here is his Top Twenty:

1. Lupa, 170 Thompson Street, Manhattan
2. Roberto's, 632 East 186th Street, Bronx
3. La Villa, 261 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
4. Max, 51 Avenue B, Manhattan
5. San. Cono, 303 Graham Avenue, Brooklyn
6. 'ino, 21 Bedford Street, Manhattan
7. al di la, 248 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn
8. Grimaldi's, 19 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn
9. Lodomini's Taste of Italy, 871 Third Avenue, Brooklyn
10. Via Emilia, 240 Park Avenue South, Manhattan
11. Otto, 1 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
12. Maffei Pizza, 688 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan
13. DiFara's, 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn
14. Giorgione, 307 Spring Street, Manhattan
15. Malatesta, 649 Washington Street, Manhattan
16. Gino's Focacceria, 7118 18th Avenue, Brooklyn
17. Trattoria L'Incontro, 21-76 31st Street, Astoria, Queens
18. Fratelli's Pizza Cafi, 404 Hunts Point Avenue, Bronx
19. Joe's Restaurant, 66-53 Forest Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens
20. Totonno's, 1524 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn

See the complete list here.