A Salumi Master’s Guide to the Best Italian Restaurants in America

It’s a family-run food and wine shop, plus a great place to go for sandwiches. And the owners are kind. I like something they call the Philly—thinly sliced porchetta, rapini, and pickled peppers. When I was a kid, my dad, who’s Turkish, used to take me to a little Middle Eastern grocery called Al’s. It’s no longer around, but Jimmy’s reminds me of it.

Quince is on the super-fancy end of Italian food. It has three Michelin stars with every bell and whistle and everything on the tasting menu is flawless. They even walk around with an Amari cart, in case you want Amari after dinner.

I went to the original one in Rome. I’ve never been to the one in New York, but I imagine the menu is similar. Their pasta is spot-on with all the Roman classics—Carbonara, Amatriciana—and lots of salumi. They had coppa di testa that was really good; they made it with ginger. Their bakery is great, too. They had potato pizza, a focaccia-like bread [cut into] big, bubbly squares.

Calabria Pork Store is in a small neighborhood in the Bronx that’s protected. It’s like Little Italy, but a lot less touristy. They make their own salumi. It’s a shot gun-shaped room and they have the deli on one side with the glass case and then they have all the salumi hanging above you on bars with sawdust on the floor.

It’s mainly pasta and pizza. You can order a la carte or you can do their pasta tasting menu. They always have really cool pasta with non-traditional combinations. My wife and I love visiting San Francisco, mainly for the food. Last time we were there, we were wandering around, killing 45 minutes before our reservation at Flour and Water, and we happened to walk by Emilio Miti, which is the store of the guy I buy my pasta-making machines from. He also restores hand-crank meat slicers, which are basically the Ferraris of slicers.