New York

• Home to the country's greatest number of Italian restaurants -- roughly 3,000 -- New York also has the largest number of excellent, and interesting, Italian restaurants. The most notably lauded is Del Posto (delposto.com), a grand effort by successful restaurateurs Joe Bastianich, Mario Batali's and Joe's mother, Lidia Bastianich. It was awarded the top four-star rating by the New York Times in 2010, the first Italian to be so since the mid-1970s. Marea (marea-nyc.com), led in the kitchen by Michael White, burst on to the scene in 2009, garnering countless accolades for its contemporary Italianate, and lavish, take on seafood. In 2008, legendary restaurateur Tony May closed San Domenico, for two decades widely regarded as the best Italian restaurant in New York. In 2009, he opened its successor, SD26 (sd26ny.com), that is geared more to current lifestyles, but still with similar pursuit of modern alta cucina, and the same exacting standards when it comes to ingredients and execution.
  
  

Philadelphia

• With a large Italian-American presence, Italian restaurants have been numerous in Philadelphia since about the turn of the twentieth century. None drew any real recognition outside of the area until Marc Vetri opened his eponymous restaurant in 1999. Writing in Bon Appetit in 2005, Alan Richman asked, "Is this the best Italian restaurant in America?" The cooking at Vetri (vetriristorante.com) is pan-Italian, but "more northern than southern," according to the New York Times, while creating dishes that are imaginative and expertly prepared.
  
  

Chicago

• Spiaggia, (spiaggiarestaurant.com) from chef-owner Tony Mantuano, opened in 1984 in the glitzy heart of downtown Chicago, and would eventually prove to be city's most creative and best Italian restaurant. Over the years it hosted talented chefs like Paul Bartolotta, Michael White and Missy Robbins, who would each gain national notice in other cities. Spiaggia would earn Mantuano a James Beard Award, four stars from the Chicago Tribune -- its highest rating -- and spots on future national top-ten lists.
  
  

Las Vegas

• Sin City's casinos host a number of Italian-themed eateries, including several of the highest rank. The most acclaimed is Bartolotta di Mare (wynnlasvegas.com), which is named after Paul Bartolotta, its two-time James Beard Award-winning chef. It might be the most serious Italian seafood restaurant in the world, and possibly the priciest, too, serving the best of the Mediterranean and more. Bartolotta, an alumnus of the famed San Domenico, boasted he had "the freshest branzino, orata, triglie and other Mediterranean fish shipped to me overnight for my menu that evening," and the culinary chops to finish these and other Italian dishes quite successfully in a spectacular setting.
  
  

Los Angeles

• Led by restaurateurs Mauro Vincenti and Piero Selvaggio, it was the Los Angeles area, not New York, that laid claim to the first truly great, authentic modern Italian restaurants, Rex downtown and Valentino (valentinorestaurantgroup.com) in nearby Santa Monica. The former did not long survive Vincenti's death in 1995, but Valentino carries on, reinvigorated in 2010 with a skilled chef from Sardinia, Nico Chessa. It remains creative, distinctive and uniquely Italian, employing the very best in Italian and area foodstuffs and wine. In 1997, it was named the best Italian restaurant in America by Wine Spectator, and also the best Italian restaurant in the world by the Italian publication Gambero Rosso. In late 2010 in Esquire, restaurant authority John Mariani opined, "Valentino in Santa Monica still ranks among the top five Italian restaurants in America."