Manganaro's Grosseria, New York

Head past sagging shelves of canned tomatoes and bottled vinegars until you reach the back counter of this deli-cum-restaurant. There, you’ll find Seline Dell’Orto, the brassy great-niece of James Manganaro, who opened the store in 1910. As she doles out your lasagna (in which the meat sauce is fortified with link sausage), she’ll talk about the place’s history in one breath, and issue diatribes against the “yuppie food movement” in the next.

Photo: Noah Fecks

Manganaro’s Grosseria, New York

Dell’Orto’s ruminations are part of the place’s charm--as are the oversize arancini, which keep their texture despite a thick molten center of mozzarella. Like almost every dish at Manganaro’s, the arancini are doused in red sauce before going out to a table.

Photo: Noah Fecks

Manganaro’s Grosseria, New York

Located in the semi-industrial outskirts of New York’s Midtown, this spot's lunch hour is quiet. Dell’Orto offers a full menu of pastas, and also classic subs like chicken Parmesan. She insists that her version is better than the one made next door, at Manganaro’s Hero Boy. Hero Boy is the result of a family feud; one branch of the Manganaro family split to open the new spot. Tensions are still coursing, as evidenced by the sign that hangs outside the original: “Hero Boy is NOT affiliated with us!”

Red-sauce tip: Buy the cookbook, published in 1989 and loaded with family recipes. Click here to buy.
Photo: Noah Fecks

Salatino’s, Chicago

Though it’s only been open a year, Chicago’s Salatino’s has an old soul: It’s the reincarnation of historic Little Italy restaurant Gennaro’s, which closed in 2009. Mary Jo Gennaro joined forces with two other Chicago restaurateurs, Scott Harris and Jimmy Bannos, to bring her family’s restaurant back to life. Though the name has changed, some of her family portraits adorn the walls, and standards like the cavatelli braciola--pasta and rolled flank steak doused in red gravy--remain on the menu.

Salatino’s, Chicago

Some of our many favorites include chicken cooked under a brick (pictured), spaghetti and baseball-size meatballs, lasagna, stuffed clams, pork chops with peppers and veal Marsala, all served in gargantuan portions.

Salatino’s, Chicago

Chef Jo Farina, a two-decade veteran of Italian-slanted joints, oversees the menu, which is a combination of Gennaro family classics and his recipes for checkered-tablecloth standards.

Red-sauce tip: The restaurant offers a polenta of the day, served with varying toppings: wild mushrooms, mascarpone cheese, pot roast and gravy. Farina uses Nicoli Polenta Svelta for his hearty creations. Click here to buy.

Trattoria Toscana, Boston

Leave it to an Albanian-born chef to most accurately render a Tuscan meal--in a location well beyond the borders of Boston’s North End, no less. Zamir Kociaj spent 12 years cooking in Florence, and now deftly executes a collection of traditional and sometimes antique recipes inside his homey, 24-seat trattoria behind Fenway Park. One such dish is gnocchi in a creamy pancetta-flecked sauce.

Photo: Melissa Ostrow

Trattoria Toscana, Boston

Kociaj masters trippa alla Fiorentina (pictured), tripe braised in white wine with winter vegetables, as well as sausage-filled, hand-shaped ravioli. The ribollita might as well be delivered direct from the Old World, while the porcini, which fragrantly adorn a winter risotto, actually are (Kociaj has them imported frozen).

Red-sauce tip: Kociaj drizzles Paesano extra-virgin olive oil as a finish on everything, from a bresaola-and-burrata starter to his hearty ribollita. Click here to buy.

Photo: Melissa Ostrow