The biggest challenge in assessing Rhode Island’s restaurants is in creating a hierarchy — or even a classification — for Italian restaurants. It’s the state’s most popular cuisine and, with innumerable interpretations of Italian gastronomic culture — casual, traditional, elevated, modern — it’s tough to discern which restaurants have forged an identity that is both unique and historically familiar. 

But La Masseria, a project that has its roots in Italy, New York City, Florida and the Ocean State, managed to gain a foothold almost immediately, not only because the menu never strays too far from the agriculture of Italy, but because its aesthetic is centered on a universal understanding of pastoral living.