The tissue-thin vodka pie that defined a decade of NoLita — Staten Island recipe, Mulberry Street room
Must-try: Tie-dye pie (vodka and pesto), Classic thin-crust pie, Fried artichokes
📍 235 Mulberry St, New York, NY 10012
The best Italian restaurants in NoLita, New York City — 3 ranked picks with ratings and must-try dishes.
3 picksNoLita has 3 Italian restaurants we would send anyone to, ranked here by rating and review depth. Rubirosa sits at the top with 4.5 stars. If you only order one thing, make it the tie-dye pie (vodka and pesto) at Rubirosa. Most of this list stays under $40 a head. 2 of the 3 take online reservations, and the live availability badge on each card shows what is actually open tonight.
NoLita packs a lot of good cooking into a handful of blocks, and most of it is in rooms small enough to make reservations worth it.
The tissue-thin vodka pie that defined a decade of NoLita — Staten Island recipe, Mulberry Street room
Must-try: Tie-dye pie (vodka and pesto), Classic thin-crust pie, Fried artichokes
📍 235 Mulberry St, New York, NY 10012
The Houston Street red-sauce room with the famously selective door — old New York, still holding the line
Must-try: Rigatoni alla vodka, Veal Milanese, Linguine with clams
📍 55 E Houston St, New York, NY 10012
America's first pizzeria, licensed in 1905 — coal-fired Neapolitan-American pies in NoLita
Must-try: Original Margherita, Clam pie, Pie with fresh sausage
📍 32 Spring St, New York, NY 10012
Rubirosa — 4.5 stars across 3,784 reviews, the highest on this list. The tissue-thin vodka pie that defined a decade of NoLita — Staten Island recipe, Mulberry Street room.
2 of the 3 book online — Rubirosa and Lombardi's. The rest are walk-in or phone-only. Each card here shows live availability for tonight where the restaurant publishes it.
The tie-dye pie (vodka and pesto) at Rubirosa, the rigatoni alla vodka at Emilio's Ballato and the original margherita at Lombardi's. Those are the dishes regulars point to first.
Ratings and review volume decide the order, but the list itself is drawn from restaurants people actually post about — 3 of the 3 here have a TikTok attached to their card. Every entry is checked as open before it ships.