PHLGuide

The Best Italian Restaurants In Philadelphia

Where to eat Italian food in Philly when you aren’t willing to settle.
This is a plate of lasagna at Dante & Luigi's.

photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO

Some of the country’s oldest and best Italian restaurants are right here in Philly—after all, we started the whole dining out thing in the late 1600’s. After eating endless plates of pasta, whole fish, pizza, and nearly everything covered in mozzarella, we’re confident in giving you this guide: the 15 best restaurants for Italian food in the city. From veal parmigiana at old-school red sauce joints to Sicilian agrodolce chicken in a defunct high school, we’ve eaten it all.

THE SPOTS

photo credit: RACHEL LERRO

Pasta

Center City

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Vetri isn’t just the best Italian restaurant in Philadelphia—it’s one of the best restaurants in the city, period. The Center City staple can get extremely expensive, so it works best for a special occasion. As soon as you walk in the door, you’ll get an aperol spritz on the house, which feels nice until you realize you’re shelling out $165 for the tasting menu. The meal is actually worth all that money, though, because you’ll eat around 15 courses that include excellent housemade pasta, cured meats, and other Italian dishes like salt-baked branzino. If you have an occasion important enough to warrant dropping a few hundred dollars on dinner, Vetri is where you should do it.


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Fiorella is where you should spend all night eating pasta until someone tries to kick you out or demand rent. While the Bella Vista pasta bar has outstanding small plates like wild boar terrine with cherries, make no mistake:it’s the pasta you’re here for. If you snag any of the bar seats inside, you’ll have a great view of ricotta gnocchi, chestnut lasagnetta with goose, and their legendary sausage rigatoni being made right in front of you. Bring some out-of-towners here if you want to impress them while simultaneously ruining all other pasta dishes they've ever eaten. Unless your guests are from Italy, of course.

With massive picture windows and bright green signage, it’s hard to miss this Kensington pasta bar and wine shop. But even if you don’t notice the couples sharing bottles of merlot as you walk by, the unmistakable scent of lamb ragu will draw you in. From perfectly blended cocktails and unique, affordable wines to pastas so good that you’ll consider proposing to the chef, this intimate corner restaurant should be your go-to for any time you’re craving carbs. Tulip serves up modern takes on Italian classics, like cacio e peperoncini, Thai-inspired linguine and mussels, and our favorite, the charcoal roasted beet ravioli.

If you ever wanted to know what it feels like to have an exclusive dinner party inside of your high school, head to Irwin’s inside of South Philly’s Bok Building. The restaurant is inside a converted classroom that’s full of plants and mid-century furniture like old bookshelves you haven’t seen since third period English, and they have a large patio that wraps around the outside. Even though the atmosphere is laid back and casual, the Sicilian dishes, like citrusy whole fish, tender agrodolce chicken, and handmade pastas feel like they could be served to somebody who lives in a palace. Come here for a fun group dinner and experience one of the best views in the city.

Philly has a long, bizarre legacy of members-only clubs, many of which are still around today. To get into this cash-only Italian social club in East Passyunk, you need a membership or a friend who has one and is willing to let you be their shadow. But it's not nearly as expensive or soul-sucking as the famous members-only club on Broad Street you're probably picturing right now. Imagine an uncle's basement on Snyder Ave. from the 1950s that stays open until 3am and serves very good amaro, spaghetti and blue crab, and late-night stromboli. You can try emailing them nicely to ask about memberships (these cost less than $50), though it might not work. But once you're in, you’ll want to bring every out-of-towner here to show off. 

Osteria is a spacious Italian spot on North Broad that has a beautiful covered greenhouse. It's flowing with flowers and a long bar that makes it an easy place to drop in before a show at The Met. The cocktails, pizzas, and handmade pastas are all excellent—especially their creamy and earthy francobolli ravioli that’s packed with robiola cheese and topped with large trumpet mushrooms. But we’re also big fans of the wood-grilled chicken if you want something that won’t weigh you down on an intimate date night.

photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO

Open since 1899, this is Philadelphia’s oldest Italian restaurant. It's overwhelminingly old school—think white table cloths and candlelight, chandeliers, black and white photos, and dining rooms throughout converted townhouses. The South Philly spot uses that century of experience to whip up top-notch pastas like the gnocchi romano, fettuccini filetto with filet mignon and sun-dried tomatoes, and a baked lasagna that’s the best in town. And even though the interiors look fancy with paintings on the wall that look like they belong at a museum, you can eat here without dropping some serious money—none of the entrees cost more than $30.

When you drive by Café Carmela, you’ll see a line that looks like PennDOT on the weekends. And it’s no wonder—they’ve mastered the carb holy trinity of pizza, sandwiches, and pasta. The interiors are a mix of classic Italian red booth seating, checkered tablecloths, and bulb marquees spelling out “pizza” that always gets the attention of kids with their families. There’s not a bad dish on the menu (we checked), but if you stop by and don’t try the American Boy pizza with creamy mozzarella or a cheesesteak with thick cuts of ribeye, you’ll miss out on what everyone in that line is probably waiting around for.

Saloon is an Italian restaurant, but it’s also a quintessential South Philly dining experience. It’s been around for 55 years, and is still outfitted with dark wood walls and candlelight, stained glass windows, and paraphernalia from 19th and 20th century Philadelphia. The staff has as much personality as the building itself (and most have been around just as long). The menu ranges from traditional steakhouse dishes like clams casino and petite filet with mashed potatoes, but we’re partial to the Italian house specialties, like the linguine pescatore with jumbo shrimp and a buttery lobster Francaise (and if Rocky were real, he would be, too). 

Wm. Mulherin’s Sons looks like a house in the Catskills that Martha Stewart owns. The part-boutique hotel, part-restaurant in Fishtown has big wooden tables and a fireplace in the middle of the dining room. They also have some great outdoor seating for groups, whether you're sitting on the sidewalk or in the garden that feels straight out of a scene from Downtown Abbey. On top of just looking really nice, the cocktails and Italian food are also excellent. There are lots of things to choose from, but what they do best are pastas like the braised beef cheek agnolotti and Neapolitan pizzas—especially the double margarita pizza topped with both mozzarella and burrata.

When only checkered table cloths, Frank Sinatra's greatest hits, and comically large maps of Italy will do, head to The Victor Café in Passyunk Square. It's a classic Italian place—they even have live opera every night—where you can share a bottle of wine, eat creamy vegetable risotto, and perfect your spaghetti twirling technique. It's incredibly useful for a date night or weeknight when only a tasty plate of carbs will do. Grab an order of the salty veal saltimbocca along with one of their many spritzes and pretend you're at Adrian's beside Rocky himself (in fact, it's where Rocky Balboa was filmed).


Le Virtù is where you go in East Passyunk when you want to eat Italian dishes like arancini with spicy sausage and a lemony branzino, but don’t want to do it in a closet-sized room where you end up grazing a stranger's knee. There’s a lot of space here, including a lovely candlelit patio, so it’s a good spot for a weeknight group dinner where you pass a plate of garlicky tagliatelle around the table while sipping on a glass of rosé. 

At Aroma On 3rd, if you forget a bottle of wine at home, the servers just give you their reserves. That’s the kind of warm and welcoming place it is. It’s full of regulars who have been coming here for years, like the couples who claim this place as their own, and old ladies making declarations about the youth obsession with “the tick tocky thing in their phones.” The Pennsport restaurant is small and intimate, so you’ll see every plate of pillowy gnocchi, seafood fettuccine, or juicy whole branzino that goes to each table. The food is consistently good, so if you’re indecisive, you could close your eyes, order whatever your finger lands on, and be satisfied. They don’t take reservations online, but you can call ahead. Or just walk in and have an impromptu Italian feast. 


There are plenty of old school red sauce places in South Philly, but L’Angolo is one of the best. They take reservations, which is a huge advantage, and with a few separate rooms in the back, they don’t mind if you bring a group and enough wine to have a good time. Plus, their menu is full of fresh pasta and seafood dishes that are easily big enough to share. For a little bit of both, get the spaghetti scoglio.


Ambrosia Ristorante is a casual Italian spot in Fitler Square where you can eat bowls of mussels in a saffron broth, mushroom risotto, and plates of squid ink spaghettini that’s tossed with crab meat and calamari. The handmade pastas here are usually big enough for two, can all be made gluten-free, and can get a handfulof shrimp or chicken for a few extra bucks. There’s also a wine shop down the street if anyone in your group forgot a bottle to pair with the gigantic chicken milanese. 


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