I Sodi

This oasis of a restaurant is chef Rita Sodi's ode to her native Tuscany. The menu of antipasti, masterful house-made pastas, and secondi does not stray from traditional cuisine. The tiny, Bleecker street locale is transportive — between the food, the white tablecloths, the close-knit energy, and the bar's many variations on the classic Negroni, you could just as easily be in Italy. As Pete Wells put it: "I Sodi seems not to have fully assimilated into the United States. It exists in its own extraterritorial jurisdiction, like the headquarters of the United Nations."