Finding your favorite Italian restaurant in a city like New York is an extraordinary act—and once you have one, you must never let it go. Hold it tightly like the lapels of a wool coat when the wind whips down Sixth Avenue. Learn the names of the owners, the managers and the waitstaff. Greet them ebulliently, and if you can, in Italian. Try every dish on the menu until you know, for sure, which is your go-to. Tip plentifully and often until the server knows, for sure, what that dish is, too.

In Manhattan, it is fair to say there are more Italian restaurants than one can count, many of which are pizzerias or heavier American-Italian cuisine that stray from the goal of being transported to an evening in that dreamy European country.