Great Italian Restaurants? It's In the Sauce

What makes an Italian restaurant truly great. There are so many places, and so many of them serve great food. Many people can make fine pasta and maybe grill a fish, but what truly sets the best Italian restaurants apart is the sauce.

An Italian restaurant should be able to make fantastic sauces, both cream based and tomato based. Cream based sauces should be rich without being overpowering. You can have a great white cream sauce, but if it is too heavy, you will put your customer to sleep before he or she finishes the meal! That is they key, balancing the richness without going heavy. If a restaurant can make a great base cream sauce, it needs to develop several varieties, both with wine and without. Only fresh vegetables should be used (no canned mushroom please!).

Of course Italian food is really known for dramatic tomato based sauces and no matter how good a cream based sauce is, if a restaurant does not have a front line of red sauces, it is not worth going. The true mark of a fine establishment is how good a simple tomato and basil sauce stands out on a bed of light pasta (something like fettuccini or calamaretti). If the sauce brings out and enhances the taste of the pasta, it is a winner. if it hides or otherwise overpowers the pasta, you will have better luck moving on.

Know a great restaurant where the sauce is outstanding? Let me know. I am always on the prowl for great Italian food.