La Superlativa

Ask for the best Italian restaurant NYC has and you will get six answers, partly because “modern Italian” gets thrown around loosely here. Two things usually earn the label honestly: a kitchen cooking one Italian region with contemporary technique, or a kitchen applying Italian method to whatever is good that week. This covers six restaurants between Union Square and NoMad that fit one of those descriptions, plus what each does well and who should actually book it. Addresses, hours and menu items below come from each restaurant’s own website, checked in late July 2026. Menus in this part of Manhattan turn over with the season, so confirm before you go.

The short answer

If you want pasta as the main event, go to Rezdôra. If you want a full dinner with a bar you can arrive early to, Isabelle’s Osteria on Park Avenue South. If you want lunch, Scarpetta and Rezdôra both serve it on weekdays and most of the others do not.

How these were chosen

Four things mattered. The kitchen needs a point of view you can describe in a sentence. The restaurant has to publish its own menu and hours, so you can plan without guessing. It has to sit within walking distance of Union Square, Gramercy, Flatiron or NoMad. And it has to be doing something a jar of sauce cannot do.

No scores. Ranking plates of food on a ten-point scale is a parlor trick. What follows is ordered by how distinct the cooking is, not by which room I like sitting in.

At a glance

• Rezdôra, 27 East 20th Street. Emilia-Romagna pasta. Lunch Tuesday through Sunday, dinner nightly.
• Massara, 913 Broadway. Dinner only, 5:00 to 10:30 daily.
• Isabelle’s Osteria, 245 Park Avenue South. Contemporary Italian, large bar, weekend brunch.
• Scarpetta, 88 Madison Avenue. Weekday lunch and dinner nightly.
• Tarallucci e Vino, 15 East 18th Street. Open from 8am most days.
• Paul & Jimmy’s, 123 East 18th Street. The traditional benchmark everything else gets measured against.

What a modern Italian restaurant in NYC actually gets right

The best of them narrow rather than expand. A kitchen that cooks Emilia-Romagna properly will beat a kitchen doing a nationwide tour, because the second kind has to be adequate at forty things instead of excellent at eight. Watch for a short pasta list, a wine list that leans Italian rather than international, and a menu that changed since the last time you looked.

Most of the screening happens before you sit down, and a fair amount of it can be done from the sidewalk. There is a good breakdown of the structural tells that give a tourist trap away worth reading if you are choosing on the fly rather than from a list.

Rezdôra

Emilia-Romagna, cooked with more precision than nostalgia. The pasta list is the reason to go and the reason to book early. Rezdôra sits on East 20th Street between Broadway and Park Avenue South, a five minute walk from the 6 at 23rd Street and about the same from Union Square.

Their own site lists lunch Tuesday through Friday from noon to 2:30, weekend lunch from 11:30, and dinner every night from 5:00 to 11:00. Best suited to a diner who wants to eat pasta as courses rather than as one plate, and who is willing to plan ahead.

Massara

Dinner only, 5:00 to 10:30, seven nights, at 913 Broadway just north of Union Square. The southern Italian cooking here is more direct than what you find a few blocks east, and the fact that the kitchen does not bother with lunch tells you where the effort goes.

Best suited to a second or third date, or a dinner where you want one thing done well rather than a menu you have to negotiate. If you need a weekday lunch, this is not your restaurant.

Isabelle’s Osteria

Contemporary Italian on Park Avenue South at 20th Street, with Executive Chef James Tracey running the kitchen. Homemade pastas and seasonal dishes, in a 150 seat room with a long bar and a private dining room off the main space.

The reason it lands here rather than higher or lower: the pasta is genuinely made in house and the menu moves with the season, but the room is built for range rather than for a single obsession. Rigatoni alla vodka, tagliatelle Bolognese and bucatini carbonara all sit on the menu together, which is a different project than Rezdôra’s.

That range is the point for some diners. If you are feeding four people who want four different things, including someone who will order the branzino and someone who wants steak, this works better than a tasting-oriented kitchen. The bar also runs an Aperitivo Hour on weekdays from 2 to 6, which makes it one of the few places nearby where arriving early is a feature rather than a wait. Reservations go up 30 days out on OpenTable and Resy for parties up to ten. You can view Isabelle’s current menu before deciding.

Best suited to a group dinner where opinions differ, or a weeknight where you want a real bar and a real kitchen in the same building.

Scarpetta

88 Madison Avenue, in NoMad. Lunch runs 11:30 to 2:30 Monday through Friday, with dinner nightly and later closes on Friday and Saturday. This is the most formal room on the list and the pricing follows.

Best suited to a business lunch you want to go well, or an anniversary where the room matters as much as the plate. Not the choice for a spontaneous Tuesday.

Tarallucci e Vino

15 East 18th Street, half a block from Union Square, open from 8am Monday through Friday and 9am Saturday. Pastries in the morning, wine bar in the evening, happy hour from 3 to 6 in the bar and outdoor areas.

Best suited to the meal you did not plan. It is also the answer when someone wants to sit outside near the Greenmarket and nobody wants to commit to a two hour dinner.

Paul & Jimmy’s

A Gramercy Park fixture at 123 East 18th Street since 1950, cooking southern Italian and Italian-American classics with handmade pasta. Open from noon daily, closing at 10:00 Tuesday through Saturday and 9:00 Sunday and Monday.

It is on this list as a control. If a modern Italian restaurant cannot beat a 75 year old neighborhood kitchen on flavor, the modernity is decoration. Best suited to a family dinner, an early meal before something at Union Square, or the night you want the food to be recognizable.

Getting there

All six sit inside a fifteen minute walk of Union Square, which puts the 4, 5, 6, L, N, Q, R and W within reach. The 6 at 23rd Street is closer for Rezdôra, Isabelle’s and Scarpetta. The 23rd Street stop on the N and R serves Massara and Eataly’s corner of Fifth Avenue if you are coming from the west side.

If you are starting from the park rather than the subway, a companion guide covers what is actually walkable from each corner of Madison Square Park, with the walk times measured rather than guessed.

Frequently Asked Question

Is modern Italian more expensive than a traditional red sauce restaurant?

Usually yes, though the gap is smaller than people assume. The cost difference comes from portioning rather than markup. A restaurant serving pasta in course-sized portions expects you to order three or four things, while a neighborhood Italian-American kitchen serves one plate that feeds you. Compare total spend for the table instead of comparing single item prices, and check whether the restaurant posts a lunch menu, which is often where the same kitchen becomes affordable. Prices change often enough that any figure quoted here would be wrong within a month, so check the current menu on the restaurant’s own site.

Where to start

If you have one dinner and no strong preference, book Rezdôra for the pasta or Isabelle’s for the range, depending on how many people you are feeding and how much they agree with each other.

The useful habit is checking the restaurant’s own site the week you go. Every hour and dish named here came from one, because everything else on the internet is a photograph from 2019.

Our standing verdicts, and how each one is decided, sit on the front page.

Editor’s note: Isabelle’s Osteria is affiliated with this publication. Restaurants were selected using the criteria described above.