The flagship location of Brooklyn-born Frankies is a complex in East Nashville that includes the Pizzeria and the Bottega, and Frankies Spuntino 925, located in a former mattress factory within the Laurel and Pine development. Frankie’s Sputino is the full-service restaurant of the three, dishing up an Italian American menu peppered with Sicilian-style meatballs with pine nuts and raisins, escarole and cannellini bean soup, and gnocchi marinara. The pizzeria offers pizza, salads, and beer, in a casual walk-in setting while the bottega is all about take-home delights, from dried pasta and olive oils to salumi and prepared food items. 

Fashioned after an “old-school Italian trattoria,” Anthony Scotto’s second Nashville restaurant is a decidedly warmer, more casual space than Luogo in the Gulch, with both patio and bar seating and a focus on casual Italian comfort food. Dishes include arancini, crispy garlic potatoes, creamy polenta with bolognese sauce, and a chicken scarpiello using thighs and sausage. The drink menu focuses on classic aperitif-style cocktails such as the Pelato Palmer made with sweet tea and limoncello, and a frozen espresso martini combining vodka, coffee liqueur, demerara syrup, and nitro cold brew. 

City House has been a Germantown staple for over 15 years, and its Southern riff on rustic Italian fare designated Nashville native Tandy Wilson as the first Music City chef to take home a James Beard Award. The belly ham pizza, Sunday supper’s meatball special, and desserts from talented pastry chef Rebekah Turshen are all crucial to the success of this cozy essential located in a former sculptor’s studio. 

A well-kept local secret, chef Giovanna Orsino holds court in Hermitage at Tutti da Gio, churning out recipes from her hometown, Milazzo, Sicily. Using handmade gnocchi and a variety of other pasta, she and her team turn out homespun plates like arancini, Sicilian lasagna, fusilli with smoked salmon in a cream sauce, and wood-fired pies from a brick oven.

Nashville scored big when James Beard Award-winning chef Tony Mantuano and wine/hospitality expert Cathy Mantuano, life and business partners, brought Nashville the fine-dining Italian menu it had been missing — not to mention the standout service and welcoming atmosphere inside the Joseph Hotel. Just try to save some room for pastry chef Noelle Marchetti’s jaw-dropping desserts.

PennePazze has grown into two locations — one in L&L Market off of Charlotte Avenue and the other in Murfreesboro — with good reason. The rich, rustic dishes and blistered pinsa (a cousin of pizza using a mixed-flour crust) with billowy edges are consistently done right. The creamy broccoli using radiatore pasta, four different kinds of cheese, and roasted pine nuts pairs well with the peppery arugula salad and a pinsa.

The brainchild of St. Louis chef Gerard Craft, Pastaria serves some seriously delightful carbs from its lofty shop in the OneC1ty complex. Watch as dishes like cacio e pepe, tubular egg-based garganelli, pistachio ravioli, and wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzas slide out fresh from chef Evelynn Hadsell’s open kitchen. Look out for the grab-and-go gelato counter by the door — a nice touch for a post-pasta sweet treat.

This moody, hip Gulch spot is known for sfinchione, a square, Sicilian-style pizza with a thick, spongy crust. But there’s more to the menu than distinctive pizza: plates of inventive, composed dishes rotate through constantly, from plates of leeks doused in dijon vinaigrette and topped with a jammy egg to crab risotto with black pepper confit. It’s open for lunch and dinner, serving natural wines, cocktails, and a funky playlist at all times.   

Chef Egidio Franciosa and partner Jannah Franciosa gave their popular mobile pizzeria a permanent location in Wedgewood-Houston, serving up Neapolitan-style pies like the diavola with calabrese salami in an open, airy, industrial-feeling spot. But the menu doesn’t stop at pizza — you’ll also want to dig into the restaurant’s carpaccio, antipasto spreads, risotto with seasonal mushrooms, and pasta dishes like bucatini with wild-caught octopus ragu and cherry tomatoes.

For years, chef Daniel Maggipinto has been charming guests at this quaint Sylvan Park eatery with traditional recipes from his grandmother, the titular Nonna. After a recent remodel, the space feels modern yet cozy, befitting an eternally hip Italian grandmother. Starters like fried calamari and a hearty Tuscan bruschetta segue smoothly into mains like the lamb shank Toscana with spinach, tomatoes, white beans, and feta. There’s also an option to build your own pasta plate featuring rigatoni, gnocchi, and risotto with an abundance of sauces, meats, veggies, and cheeses for topping.

Matthew and Ryan Poli have taken their talents to Wedgewood Houston with a 70-seat dining room laser-focused on inventive Italian cuisine. Expect the unexpected. An open kitchen allows guests to watch as the chefs prepare brioche garlic bread with whipped cheese, confit chicken thigh ravioli, and the snail-shaped pasta lumache with Maine peekytoe crab, sea urchin butter, Japanese red chiles, yuzu, and roasted seaweed. Gluten-free pasta is also available as a substitute for most dishes.