Italian-American vs. Italian
The Italian-American food tradition that developed in New York is its own cuisine — not a lesser imitation of Italian food, but a distinct thing that evolved from Southern Italian immigrant cooking adapted to American ingredients, portions, and palates over 150 years. Baked ziti, chicken parmigiana, and the classic garlic-bread-and-marinara starter are not how people eat in Italy; they are genuinely American dishes with Italian roots, and New York does them better than anywhere else.
Separately, New York has a serious contemporary Italian restaurant scene — restaurants cooking regional Italian food at the highest level, many run by chefs who have worked in Italy or trained under Italian-born chefs in the US. Both traditions are worth knowing and neither needs apologising for.
Where to find it
Arthur Avenue, the Bronx — the most authentic Italian-American food district in the city (see our Arthur Avenue guide). The retail market, the bakeries, and the red-sauce restaurants here are the real thing.
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn — a historically Italian-American Brooklyn neighbourhood with several long-running restaurants and bakeries that survived the neighbourhood's demographic shift in better shape than Manhattan's Little Italy did.
Manhattan's Little Italy — honest assessment: what's left is mostly tourist-facing. A few places remain that predate the tourism and are still worth eating at, but the neighbourhood as a food destination is a shadow of what it was.
West Village and SoHo — contemporary Italian restaurants at the higher end of the price range, some genuinely excellent. This is where you go if you want to eat very well and spend accordingly.