The best Italian restaurants in Little Italy San Diego

Nonna brings modern Italian comfort food to Little Italy as a love letter to Italian grandmothers. Created by the Busalacchi family, Nonna features a rustic-chic space with a 75-seat outdoor patio near the iconic Little Italy sign. Stone-oven pizzas and fresh pasta from Sicilian family recipes shine, including rigatoni Palermitana with sausage and spaghetti bolognese with Sunday sauce.

Barbusa showcases modern Sicilian cuisine in a sleek space with warm wood, marble, and an open kitchen. Squid ink pasta, lamb chops, and bone marrow earn consistent praise alongside handcrafted cocktails and Southern Italian wines.

Bencotto Italian Kitchen brings Northern Italian authenticity to the Q building with urban-industrial style. The restaurant delivers 75 handcrafted pasta recipes made fresh daily. You customize your pasta by choosing options like smooth fatta a mano or al dente artiginale and then selecting sauces to go with it. The tableside cheese wheel pasta has become an Instagram sensation alongside squid ink fettuccine and stuffed gnocchi.

Civico 1845 was founded by the Gallo brothers from Cosenza, Calabria, opening in June 2015 as the first US restaurant with a full Italian vegan menu. Executive chef Pietro Gallo creates scratch-made pastas and entrees reflecting Calabrian traditions with 40% plant-based offerings. Scialiatelli civico and pappardelle brasato showcase regional flavors, while vegan linguine al verde proves plant-based Italian can be equally satisfying. Sustainability drives everything at the restaurant from locally sourced ingredients to reclaimed dining room materials.

Monello sits next to Bencotto in the Q building, celebrating Milanese street food and aperitivo culture. Monello offers 25 daily handcrafted pastas and Wednesday risotto specials served in a Lodigiano cheese wheel. The tartufo pizza and lamb ragu are must orders and look out for the weekly happy hour as well.

Established in 1973 by Vincenzo “Mimmo” Gaglio from Montelepre, Sicily, this third-generation family restaurant serves homemade Sicilian cuisine. The charming indoor “village” and dual patios create intimacy, while scratch-made dishes using fresh produce have kept generations of locals returning. The restaurant’s campanelle sausage, spicy shrimp linguine, and chicken parmesan all pair well with the legendary housemade sangria.

Allegro brings Sicilian-inspired cuisine to a dramatic Amalfi coast-inspired space with a Tuscan lemon garden patio featuring velvet, gold, marble, and fire pits. In the open kitchen, chef Marco Provino crafts modern coastal Italian dishes. Expect homemade pastas, fresh seafood, and signature entrees that blend Sicilian traditions with California ingredients.

Isola Pizza Bar channels Naples through owner and chef Massimo Tenino, who named the restaurant after his grandmother. The 2,500-square-foot space features an open kitchen and a vine-covered patio focusing on 15 specialty pizzas from family recipes cooked in a Naples-imported wood-burning oven. An extensive Italian wine selection rounds out the menu.

Head to Petrini’s for both classic and inventive Italian dishes like diablo shrimp in spicy wing sauce, smoked salmon alfredo, and classic Italian wedding soup. The bright, dog-friendly space offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus daily, so you can return at other times for Italian American favorites like meatball hoagies.

Velvet furnishings, Venetian plaster, marble, and Renaissance artwork create speakeasy-like mystique at Lala. Dishes like stuffed shells sit alongside inventive loaded potato gnocchi and squid ink pasta with lobster on the menu. Pair the food with cocktails like Stiletto, Mistress, and the signature Lala Martini.