If you're hunting for an Italian restaurant in New Rochelle, the hard part isn't finding one atio it's choosing. This page rounds up ten places we actually eat at, grouped by the kind of night you're having: a quiet downtown dinner, a table by the water, a family Sunday, or something a little off the usual script. Last updated September 2026.
New Rochelle's Italian cooking runs deeper than red sauce. There's a Roman trattoria with no fixed menu, a Calabrese kitchen up on Quaker Ridge, a Michelin-listed modern spot on Huguenot Street, and a Dominican-Italian counter on North Avenue that does Cuban sandwiches. Here's where to go and why.
Downtown New Rochelle is where you go when you want to park once (or step off the Metro-North) and not think about it again.
Maria Restaurant on Huguenot Street is the one people from outside the city now drive in for. Modern Italian, Michelin-listed, and the sort of place where the cooking is clearly the point rather than the decor. It's the pick for an anniversary, a proper celebration, or when you want to show a visitor that New Rochelle can hold its own against anywhere in Westchester. Book ahead.
Spadaro Roman Kitchen at 211 Main St is small, chef-owned, and works without a fixed menu atio you're told what's being cooked that night and you go with it. That takes a certain kind of diner, and if you're that diner it's the most rewarding meal in the city. Roman cooking, intimate room, a few tables. Absolutely reserve.
Posto 22 on Division Street has been the reliable downtown sit-down for years, and it doubles as a wine bar, which makes it the easiest yes on this list. Good for a mid-week dinner where nobody wants to make a decision, good for a glass and a plate before or after something at the theatre, and genuinely convenient to the train station if you're meeting someone coming up from the city.
Leo's Italian Restaurant at 969 Main St is the full-service, no-fuss option and the highest-rated place on this page alongside Da Giorgio. It's $$ rather than $$$, which matters when you're feeding a table of four on a Tuesday. This is the one to remember when you want a real sit-down Italian dinner without the occasion-dining price tag.
New Rochelle's shoreline is the thing outsiders underestimate, and several of the best Italian tables in town are on it.
Lunello's Restaurant sits at the Imperial Yacht Club marina on Davenport Ave, doing Italian-American with a serious seafood lean. It's the classic Westchester waterfront dinner atio boats out the window, a proper napkin, a menu your parents will be happy with. Good for milestone birthdays and for out-of-town family who want to see the water.
Marina View Restaurant & Tiki Bar on Drake Ave is the more relaxed cousin: Italian-seafood cooking plus an actual tiki bar, and dock-and-dine if you're arriving by boat. This is a warm-evening place. Come for drinks that lean tropical, stay for the seafood, and don't dress up.
Mamma Francesca on Pelham Road, near the marina, is the neighbourhood end of the waterfront scene atio authentic Italian at $$, without the yacht-club framing. Worth knowing about when you want to be near the water but want a straightforward plate of food and a bill that doesn't sting.
Da Giorgio on Quaker Ridge Rd is the specialist. Calabrese cooking atio southern Italian, from the toe of the boot atio rather than the generalist Italian-American template, and it's rated as highly as anything in the city. Reservations are recommended and you should take that seriously; it's not a large room and locals have long memories about it. Go when you want food with a specific point of view.
Maestro's Italian Restaurant on North Ave in Wykagyl is the family Italian in the truest sense: pasta, pizza, meat and seafood all on one menu, so the kid who only eats a plain slice and the adult who wants a veal dish can sit at the same table without negotiation. At $$ it's a weeknight-viable place, and it's the answer when a group can't agree on anything else.
Caridad & Louie's Restaurant at 241 North Ave is the wildcard, and a very New Rochelle one atio Dominican and Italian on the same menu, with Cuban sandwiches and comfort food alongside. It's the kind of hybrid that only exists because a neighbourhood asked for it. Go when you want something with more personality than a standard Italian restaurant in New Rochelle can offer, or when half your table wants Dominican and the other half wants pasta.
A rough cheat sheet, because ten options is a lot:
- Big occasion: Maria, or Spadaro if your guests are adventurous eaters.
- Cooking with a specific regional identity: Da Giorgio (Calabrese) or Spadaro (Roman).
- Meeting someone off the train: Posto 22.
- On the water: Lunello's for formal, Marina View for casual, Mamma Francesca for cheap and cheerful.
- Feeding a family without overthinking it: Maestro's or Leo's.
- Something you can't get anywhere else: Caridad & Louie's.
One practical note: the smaller, chef-driven rooms atio Spadaro and Da Giorgio in particular atio genuinely fill up, and turning up hopeful on a Friday is how you end up eating somewhere you didn't plan to. Call ahead. The waterfront places get busy in warm weather for obvious reasons, and the downtown restaurants get a bump whenever there's something on nearby, so a reservation costs you nothing.
Dinner is usually only half the plan. For everything else happening around town atio live music, markets, community events, things at the waterfront atio have a look at happs, our free local guide to New Rochelle. You can also sign up there for the free weekly digest and get the week's picks in your inbox, so you're not the last person to hear about it.
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