What To Order At An Italian Restaurant If You Don't Want Pasta

Thinking of Italy and its national cuisine conjures up a lot of different images. Fresh pizza and ancient Roman architecture. A glittering Mediterranean sea and towering gelato. And who could imagine Il Bel Paese without dreaming up masses of pasta piled higher than Mount Vesuvius? Well, anyone with a gluten intolerance, for one, as well as all of the eaters who happen to sit down at an Italian restaurant only to decide they don't want pasta. It may sound sacrilege, but so is thinking that Italian food only has noodles to offer.

Tasting Table linked up to talk about Italian food with chef Anthony Scotto III. Scotto is the co-founder of Pelato, an Italian-American restaurant chain that specializes in cooking the sort of dishes you might find at a Brooklyn eatery named after someone's nonna. Despite (partially) making a living on it, even Scotto agrees that it's limiting to think of Italian food only in terms of pasta. There's a lot more that you can order from an Italian restaurant.

"There is so much more to Italian cuisine than just pasta," said Scotto. "Italian-American protein dishes such as marsala, cacciatore, and piccata are my personal go-to. Fun thing about those sauces is they are all so versatile, you can use them with multiple protein options, including seafood."

To Anthony Scotto's point, there are innumerable sauce and meat options to consider for your Italian meal, and to list them all would require an encyclopedia's worth of text. The three mentioned, however, are a good place to start. So, in case you're unfamiliar: Marsala is a rich sauce made from reduced marsala wine, cream, mushrooms, and alliums like onion or garlic. If you see cacciatore on the menu, that's a basic and rustic tomato sauce often used to braise meats, while piccata is a tangy-salty fusion of white wine, butter, capers, and more. Any of these, when paired with an ideal protein, will open your taste buds to the depth and history of Italian cooking without requiring you to even look at pasta.

If you're worried about your meat feeling lonely without carbs, don't. An Italian menu worth its salt (or not, in Tuscany) will have several options that make dinner look noshable instead of noodly. Italy is known for its unique varieties of rice, and with them, the famed risotto. This slow-cooked rice dish adds heft. Risotto is a wide world in and of itself, so whether you're trying it made with pumpkins, mushrooms, or pesto, there's much to explore. You can also keep your eye out for polenta, an Italian staple porridge made from cornmeal. It often accompanies osso bucco, ragu, and braised short ribs.

Classic Italian restaurant menus have a structure that you may or may not be familiar with. Antipasto includes starter courses of cheese and/or various salumis, vegetables, and the like. Next comes the primi, which is the category that's going to include the carbs. It's here you'll want to look for risotto and polenta. Further down the menu, secondi will encompass your meats, poultry, or seafood, adorned with the delicious sauces that chef Scotto III says you simply have to try.