Lupa

Love him or hate him, Mario Batali has reshaped Italian cooking in New York. While there were a handful of restaurants in the pre-Batali era devoted to authentically Italian food (as opposed to Olive Garden-style Italian-American cuisine), no one before him combined skill in the kitchen with so much panache outside it. Batali's distinctive appearance, outsized demeanor, and infectious enthusiasm for all things edible make him a media whirlwind, it's true, but they also make eating well seem not merely fun but downright life-affirming.

For us, this culinary joy is best embodied by Lupa, the Roman trattoria in Greenwich Village. With an in-house salumeria and a menu full of classically Roman dishes like bucatini all'amatriciana and carciofi, Lupa would be at home in Trastevere or Testaccio, but its frantic energy and slightly disheveled up-all-nightness make it quintessentially New York. We can't get enough of the salty bread and olive oil, or the cappellacci with asparagus and ramps, or the ricotta gnocchi with fennel and sausage, or the proscuitto, or the asparagus pecorino, or--you get the idea.