The Best Italian Restaurants in Denver and Beyond

Denver has never had a shortage of great Italian restaurants. Classics that have withstood the test of time for more than 50 years laid a strong foundation, and every decade has seen great additions, keeping tradition alive while adding their own style of marinara, pesto, and pasta.

But a new wave of eateries has introduced a wider variety of regional dishes from Tuscany to Campagna, with pasta shapes coming from Sardinia, Sicily, and Puglia, to name just a few. Whether you love a traditional red sauce joint or a white tablecloth affair, there’s something good waiting for you. Here, the 35 best Italian restaurants in—and around—the Mile High City.

Jump Ahead:

• Bar Dough
• Barolo Grill
• Basta
• Boombots Pasta Shop
• Capriata
• Carmine’s on Penn
• Coperta
• Dear Emilia
• Dio Mio
• Florence Supper Club
• Fortezza Ristorante
• Frasca Food and Wine
• Gaetano’s
• The Greenwich
• Gusto
• Homegrown Tap & Dough
• Il Forno di Tutti
• II Pastaio Ristorante
• Johnny Bechamel’s
• Jovanina’s Broken Italian
• La Rocca Rossa
• Lo Stella Ristorante
• Luca
• Maíz y Fuego
• Na Favola
• Oliver’s Italian
• Panzano
• Parisi
• Pasta Jay’s
• Restaurant Olivia
• Romano’s Italian Restaurant
• Saverina
• Spuntino
• Stella’s Cucina
• Tavernetta Vail

Price ratings are based on average entrée cost:

• $: Under $20
• $$: $20 to $29
• $$$: $30 to $39
• $$$$: $40+ or chef’s tasting menu only

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Bar Dough

• Location: 2227 W. 32nd Ave., Denver (LoHi)
• Price: $$

If the always-bustling Bar Dough were a cocktail, it would be a spritz: The sparkling, trendy quaff befits its celebratory, convivial nature. Executive chef Stefy Devita, who started at the restaurant in 2017 before working her way to the top (including stints at sibling restaurants Señor Bear and A5 Steakhouse), turns out a rotating lineup of stellar pastas, pizzas, and larger entrées. Whatever you choose to eat from the menu, pair it with—what else?—your choice of five spritzes.

Barolo Grill

• Location: 3030 E. 6th Ave., Denver (Cherry Creek)
• Price: $$$$

Barolo Grill has been a Cherry Creek institution for three decades and counting, and its seasonal Italian menu shows exactly why. Guests can tackle the concise list by either dining à la carte or opting for the $95 tasting menu, where you pick a sized-down portion of an item from each of the menu’s four sections: antipasti and salads, pastas, meaty mains, and desserts. With options like cheese soufflé, lavender-infused agnolotti, and braised duck in the current lineup, both routes provide a fine-dining experience with flavors that you likely won’t find at other Italian spots. Regardless, we recommend having the sommelier team suggest a pairing for your meal from their expertly curated and extensive wine menu.

Basta

• Location: 3601 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder
• Price: $$$

Chef-owner Kelly Whitaker grinds heritage grains into fresh flours at Dry Storage (his artisan mill and bakery, located next door) for 13-year-old Basta’s pastas, breads, and pizzas. Inside the white-walled neighborhood spot—tucked in the luxe Peloton West condominium complex off Boulder’s Arapahoe Avenue—the comforting smell of char wafts through the air as diners feast on wood-fired specialties. That includes exquisitely plated seasonal pastas and vegetable dishes, perfectly blistered pies, and protein-centered sharable entrées. Don’t skip the ultra-fluffy sourdough piada, Basta’s famed Italian-style flatbread.

Boombots Pasta Shop

• Location: 2647 W. 38th Ave., Denver (Sunnyside)
• Price: $$

Fans of the hip-hop swagger and audacious flavor combos at Cliff and Cara Blauvelt’s graffiti-strewn deli, Odie B’s, have no doubt already stepped out of the Sunnyside location and straight into their equally daring noodle joint next door. With its wood paneling, avocado green decor, and dim lighting, the vibe at Boombots is more Uncle Bob’s 1970s basement lounge than ’90s street. The food, though, reflects Cliff’s penchant for taking tried-and-true culinary tropes and turning them on edge to create something amusing and original. “In eating in other cities and seeing the kinds of pastas out there, we realized it doesn’t have to be just an Italian-American thing,” the chef says. “I hate the idea of being stuck.”

So, instead of locking himself into boring old four-cheese filling, Cliff evokes addictive Indian samosas via chubby agnolotti cylinders bursting with tender potatoes, fresh peas, and curry spices. Mac and cheese gets a glow-up, too: Snail-shell-shaped lumache are robed in a knockout sauce of smoked cheddar, green chiles, and shredded duck. If you still seek comfort in the familiar, start with the crunchy, girthy Big Ass Mozz Sticks. The seasoned mozzarella slurry inside makes for an epic cheese pull and turns each bite into a flavor bomb.

Capriata

• Location: Avanti Vail, 458 Vail Valley Drive, Vail
• Price: $

Capriata’s setting inside a slopeside food hall doesn’t seem compatible with artisan cuisine, especially if you’re jostling for a spot in line when the place gets flooded with Vail’s boot-clad après-skiers. But owners Christopher and Ariana Teigland—who also run Denver’s Glo Noodle House—don’t take shortcuts on their pizzas and subs. Chef Freddy Lefeber, an Eagle County local, oversees the menu, and he bakes sourdough sandwich bread fresh daily. The house starter also gives the airy, slow-risen pizza crust its subtle tang. Capriata skews East Coast American-Italian, evident in big, floppy New York–style slices that will get you back on the mountain quickly. If you have time, settle in for a toasty sandwich oozing red sauce and cheese. “My favorite is the chicken parm,” Ariana says. “The chicken is so crunchy you can hear someone bite into it from two tables away.”

Carmine’s On Penn

• Location: 92 S. Pennsylvania St., Denver (Speer)
• Price: $$

While this family-style Washington Park West eatery has been open since the mid-1990s, current owner Brad Ritter took over in 2005 and then added a LoDo spot in 2021. Big platters of pasta are the specialty at the original location, but the newer outpost has adjusted to the neighborhood demographics. “We see more singles and couples there, so we’ve introduced individual portions,” Ritter says. “But we have no intention of walking away from the heritage and the style of service that have been the trademark for 30 years.” For a feast for the whole family (or wedding rehearsal dinner, or office holiday party), the baked ziti and the chicken alla Carmine’s, made with a mushroom and white wine sauce and buried in capocollo and mozz, are must-orders.

Coperta

• Location: 400 E. 20th Ave., Denver (Uptown)
• Price: $$$

When siblings Paul and Aileen Reilly opened Coperta in 2016 with Aileen’s husband, JP Taylor, they filled a previously under-occupied niche in Denver’s Italian scene by focusing on the cuisines of Rome and southern Italy. “We traveled extensively, and we really immersed ourselves in the regionality,” Paul says. “Of course, Rome—it’s so dedicated and obsessive with its traditional dishes. In Puglia, we went to Bari, and the rusticity and vegetarian cuisine was something we took away.” The spicy pollo alla diavola is an exaltation of Calabria’s signature chiles with a juicy, wood-fired bird as the backdrop. You’ll also find textbook versions of Roman cacio e pepe and rigatoni carbonara, which, as with all of Coperta’s pastas, is available in small or large portions. Coperta’s refined ingredients, including house-made mozzarella and house-cured guanciale, are nicely matched by a wine list full of indigenous Italian grapes and cocktails that favor the bittersweet buzz of amari.

Dear Emilia

• Location: 3615 Delgany St., Denver (RiNo)
• Price: $$$$

In the past, regional specificity in Italian cuisine has seldom delved deeper than northern (pesto, risotto, truffles) and southern (red sauce, pizza, calamari) in the United States. But the urge to explore, spurred in part by social media trendsetters, has birthed a greater awareness of just how much food differs from town to town in the boot-shaped nation. Dear Emilia, from Ty Leon, Heather Morrison, and Austin Carson—whose six-year-old Restaurant Olivia has already set the bar for pasta perfection in Denver—anchors itself in Emilia-Romagna, one of Italy’s most prominent food-producing zones.

This brings a certain amount of familiarity for diners, since Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar, prosciutto di Parma, mortadella, and tortellini have long been Italian restaurant staples here. RiNo’s Dear Emilia uses those as stepping stones to cross into less familiar territory. Colorado bison mortadella becomes a spread, mingling with pistachio butter on tigelle (small flatbreads split open like English muffins), while ribbons of prosciutto are gently folded atop airy, beignetlike gnocco fritto. Lasagna, another hallmark of the region, offers traditionally rolled (rather than layered) spinach pasta set upright in concentric pools of Bolognese and bechamel and strewn with basil and big curls of Parmesan. A flight of fizzy Lambrusco wines completes the journey, settling you firmly into the heart of Bologna.

Dio Mio

• Location: 3264 Larimer St., Denver (RiNo)
• Price: $$

If you’re the type of person who equates Italian food with pasta, then minimalist-hip Dio Mio is your jam; Spencer White, Alex Figura, and LuLu Clair’s seven-year-old counter-service RiNo restaurant is truly all about the noodles. Its seasonal menu changes often, encompassing novel creations such as furikake-topped radiatore with basil pistachio pesto and classics like cacio e pepe with curly-edged mafalde, pink peppercorns, and Parmesan. And while pasta is the star here, the team always has a roster of non-noodle small plates—including brown-butter-marinated artichoke hearts and house-baked sourdough—that are worthy of a visit all on their own.

Florence Supper Club

• Location: 375 S. Pearl St., Denver (Washington Park West)
• Price: $$$

The lights are dim, the booths intimate. Sinatra sings as servers whisk plates through the long, narrow dining room decorated with black-and-white family photos and stained-glass light fixtures. Red checkered tablecloths peek out beneath white ones as a finishing touch. We’re not at the corner of Mulberry and Canal streets in Lower Manhattan, though. We’re in Washington Park West, where chef and New Jersey native Miles Odell, of Odell’s Bagel fame, and Paul Lysek launched Florence Supper Club—named after Lysek’s grandmother—at the end of 2025.

Odell’s menu is as classic as the decor, from the crisp, delicately dressed Caesar salad to the clams casino to the spicy rigatoni alla vodka with red sauce so smooth you’ll get why East Coasters call it gravy. Retro dishes like veal Marsala and steak Diane make a comeback here, rescued from decades of mediocrity. There’s even cheesecake on the menu, although it’s creamier and airier than the denser New York style. The dessert is Florence’s recipe, and she was a Buffalo gal, after all.

Fortezza Ristorante

• Location: 7916 Niwot Road, Niwot
• Price: $$$

Northern Italy serves as the inspiration for Adam and Natalie Moore’s Niwot eatery, Fortezza Ristorante, which opened this past August in a garden-level space surrounded by ancient cottonwood trees. The wine cellar is deep here, at 1,000 bottles and counting, owing to Adam’s passion for Italian vintages and 18 years in high-end hospitality (including at Barolo Grill, Guard and Grace, Quality Italian, and Edge Restaurant and Bar). The cuisine, courtesy of executive chef Egan Ma, may look a little different than standard Italian fare, but the flavors ring true.

Begin with staples like the house-baked focaccia or a salumi or cheese board to set the Tuscan tone. But be sure to try the panissa with Parmigiano-Reggiano espuma—a good indicator of the kitchen’s bold style. It arrives as a crisped, rectangular chickpea fritter completely quilted in what looks like a thick white sauce; it turns out to be an airy foam carrying the flavor and aroma of Italy’s most revered cheese. Also of note is the saucer-size raviolo all’uovo, mounded with finely grated black truffle and hiding a runny yolk inside its delicate envelope of pasta. Bucatini al limon comes with a side of sunchoke chips, an odd pairing that somehow works, with the chips’ pleasing crunch complementing the al dente noodles.

Boulder County residents can easily make this a regular weekday stop for appetizers and pastas, but Denverites will want to splurge on medium-rare duck breast in cherry jus or an American wagyu rib-eye to justify the trip.

Frasca Food and Wine

• Location: 1738 Pearl St., Boulder
• Price: $$$$

Since Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson debuted Frasca in 2004, their culinary love letter to northern Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, they’ve earned oodles of accolades: a Michelin star, multiple James Beard awards, and placements on scores of best restaurant lists. Executive chef Ian Palazzola produces elegant Friulian showstoppers from inventive ingredient combinations. Past menus have featured risotto with Esoterra sculpit (a native Italian herb) and pljukanci di grano saraceno, a penne-length buckwheat pasta Palazzola dressed in glass eel and dandelion pesto. While your meal may feel like a splurge—$230 for the eight-course Friuliani menu or $150 for the Quatropiatti, with wine pairings for an additional cost—the experience is unlike any other in Colorado.

Gaetano’s

• Location: 3760 Tejon St., Denver (LoHi)
• Price: $$

With its Smaldone family mobster backstory and purportedly haunted LoHi location, there’s plenty of lore surrounding this long-standing (76 years and counting!) Mile High City institution. But Gaetano’s is no cobwebbed relic. Ron Robinson bought the place in 2013 after several years (and a complete renovation) under the Wynkoop umbrella. “This was a butcher shop, and [the Smaldones] turned it into a restaurant. They called it ‘the Place,’ ” Robinson says. “I get the old people, the people who went to North High School with the Smaldones. But then I get lots of young people who are new to the neighborhood. They all want to experience the history.”

The red sauce temple continues to deliver excellent pastas, pizzas, and cocktails. The clams aglio e olio—littlenecks and linguine swimming in a garlicky, white-wine-scented sauce—is a bowl of briny bliss, and the gooey chicken parmesan is one of the best in town. We’re not so sure about the ghost stories, but we do know that the scene at Gaetano’s on a Saturday night—barrel-aged Negroni in hand, plate of breaded calamari in front of you—feels just right.

The Greenwich

• Location: 3258 Larimer St., Denver (RiNo)
• Price: $$$

Restaurateur Delores Tronco founded the Greenwich in RiNo in 2021 as her ode to New York City’s neighborhood eateries, offering a tight menu of American bistro hits. But in July 2024, the kitchen went full Italian under executive chef (and now general manager) Luke Miller. And on January 1, Tronco turned the business over to new owner Drew Davis, with Alvaro Munoz-Honiball as the new executive chef.

Happy hour is a great place to start, since the piada is one of the best bread bites in town. The puffy, pitalike round comes cut into four wedges with a ramekin of quince balsamico for dipping. Match it with the soft and savory Jersey Ernie’s meatballs for a taste of homestyle simplicity. Also a good pairing are the salt-roasted beets on the insalata menu, served with tangy whipped ricotta, fig vinaigrette, and a crunchy showering of dukkah (toasted nuts and spices). The slow fermentation that makes the piada so good can also be tasted in the pizza crusts; the flavor really shines through on the pepita pesto and Burrata pie topped with fontina, chile flakes, and crescents of delicata squash. For pasta, the fat, chewy pici noodles (a Tuscan specialty) and Sardinian cicione (miniature semolina gnocchi) are reasons to revisit this reinvented restaurant.

Gusto

• Location: 1691 Raleigh St., Denver (West Colfax)
• Price: $$$

Chef-restaurateur Lon Symensma is known for his LoDo restaurant, ChoLon (named after Saigon’s famous market), which he opened in 2010 after years in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New York City, and Philadelphia kitchens. But before he embarked on his Asian culinary education, he was a young graduate of the Culinary Institute of America paying his dues in French restaurants near the Italian border. “We would work all week but then head into Italy on our days off, because it was close and the food was inexpensive,” he says.

Fast forward to 2024, when Symensma—who had since traveled through Italy’s many regions for research—opened Gusto in West Colfax as a tribute to those early escapes. One influence was the Amalfi Coast, where lemons abound and the proximity to Naples translates to stellar pizza. Symensma captures this in his Amalfi pie, topped with paper-thin slices of lemon confit (rinds and all), Calabrian chiles, pecorino, and starbursts of piped ricotta. Spaghetti all’assassina delivers more of those big, spicy flavors with bits of crispy, caramelized tomato sauce, and even the house Caesar comes alive with candied lemon, white anchovy, and focaccia croutons that loudly announce their presence. The chef’s knowledge of Italy extends to wines, too, so if you catch him wandering the dining room, ask him about the best glass for your meal.

Homegrown Tap & Dough

• Location: 19320 Cottonwood Drive, Parker; 221 Wilcox St., Castle Rock
• Price: $$

Jean-Philippe Failyau and Peter Newlin debuted their first pizza, pasta, and sandwich joint, Homegrown Tap & Dough, in 2014 in Washington Park, so the concept isn’t new. But recent expansions reveal a distinctly modern turn for the local chain. In 2025, Homegrown opened its fifth and sixth restaurants in Parker and Castle Rock, respectively, building on a Mountain West theme only hinted at in the cozy neighborhood original. The Gastamo Group (which also owns Park Burger, Park & Co., Lady Nomada, and Perdida) talked to potential customers in its new markets to find out what they wanted for their money. It turned out that the destination itself was as important as the food. Their newest outposts are big, at 200-plus seats—Newlin says suburbanites tend to all arrive at the same time for dinner—and the theme skews more guest ranch or alpine lodge than Jersey Shore, with antler chandeliers, homey wallpaper, and ski- and Western-themed art.

The food, too, reflects current tastes, from a pesto chicken quinoa bowl to gluten-free pizzas and pastas. But at its heart, Homegrown is still comforting, family-friendly Italian, with chicken Parmesan, baked fusilli Bolognese, and tomato-braised meatballs. Newlin refers to the origin stories of national giants, not independents, as models. “We’re doing what Chili’s or the Olive Garden did 20 to 30 years ago: scratch-made food,” he says. As at the original, kids rule; there are arcade games and on-demand pizza dough balls for fidgety toddlers to squish at every location.

Il Forno di Tutti

• Location: 1627 S. Havana St., Aurora
• Price: $$$

Every neighborhood deserves an honest, tasty Italian joint—even if that neighborhood is a Safeway-anchored strip mall in Aurora. At less than two years old, Il Forno feels lived in, partly because chef-owner and Colorado native Scott Burnham built out the tiny dining room with materials left over from his home remodel. The food is equally homey, reflecting Burnham’s experience cooking in East Coast Italian eateries. His crisp-edged lasagna baked in a cast-iron pan is a hit with regulars, but Burnham likes to mix it up with regional dishes from his months spent in Northern Italy, such as puffy pizza in padella crisped in tallow, cappellacci di zucca (little “hats” filled with winter squash), and other handmade pastas. Even the lunchtime deli sandwiches are built on house-baked bread.

II Pastaio Ristorante

• Location: 3075 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder
• Price: $$

II Pastaio has satisfied Boulderites’ carb-loaded cravings since 2000. Upon entering the strip-mall treasure, you’ll likely be greeted by Marta Oreamuno, who owns the no-frills restaurant with her husband, Giuseppe. Their pastas and sauces, all produced in-house, are available for sale by the pound and pint, respectively, for patrons to take home to whip up their own meals. But we recommend enjoying your ravioli (choose from 15 fillings, including beet, shrimp, and lamb) with spicy arrabbiata sauce or eggplant parmigiana, in the dining room. There’s even a cafeteria-style lunch special with a ravioli of the day, lasagna options, and hearty vegetable sides. Note: The restaurant is only open Monday through Friday.

Johnny Bechamel’s

• Location: 1 S. Pennsylvania St., Denver (Speer)
• Price: $$$

“We’re bread bakers at heart,” says Spencer White, one-third of the ownership team, along with Alex Figura and Lulu Clair, at Johnny Bechamel’s, which opened in the Speer neighborhood four months ago. But you likely don’t need to be told that the same level of craftsmanship obvious in the breads and pizza crusts at the trio’s other restaurants—Dio Mio, Redeemer Pizza, and Little Johnny B’s—is also on display at their newest eatery. One bite of the pizza crust or focaccia here is enough to reveal the complex flavors that only come from long fermentation times and quality flour.

Pasta starts with dough, too, and the dedication to handmade products comes through in the team’s farfalle, pappardelle, and ravioli, which are rolled and cut each day. “The only pasta equipment we have is a sheeter,” White says. Even the lasagna is sliced into squares, stacked, and baked for each order rather than being built by the pan. The result gives the dish distinctive crisped and curled edges that add to the taste and texture of the layered entrée, which also boasts leeks, oyster mushrooms, pickled beech mushrooms, and bechamel.

The spot gets extra credit for playful nostalgia in the form of a stained-glass Pizza Hut light fixture above the back booth and ’80s-accurate spinach-artichoke filling inside stuffed piquillo peppers that will have you exclaiming, “I know I’ve had this somewhere before!”

Jovanina’s Broken Italian

• Location: 1520 Blake St., Denver (LoDo)
• Price: $$$$

Since opening in late 2018, Jovanina’s has become a go-to Italian restaurant in LoDo. Its whimsical decor—candelabra-bedecked tables, reclaimed gas lamps, and floral wallpaper with hidden images of broken iPhones—hints at the sort of modern dishes you can expect from chef Jake Linzinmeir, who owns the restaurant with his wife, Jennifer. The current roster includes fire-roasted oysters with tarragon kimchi and lobster diavolo linguini. If you’re heading in for date night, we recommend joining the Caffé Rifugio club, which offers exclusive menus by invitation only.

La Rocca Rossa

• Location: 209 Bear Creek Ave., Morrison
• Price: $$$$

Morrison gets a little touristy when the weather’s right and concert season kicks off. But stepping into the 150-year-old stone building that houses La Rocca Rossa (Italian for “the Red Rock,” appropriately) is like gaining admittance to an urbane speakeasy or exclusive Vegas supper club. A sleek wall of dark wooden slats rises above plush green banquettes and comfy armchairs that you sink into before you can grab a menu. Owners Tiffani and Rand G. Packer (the chef) are no strangers to the region; they also run Evergreen’s Evoke 1923 and Murphy’s Mountain Grill, among other spots.

Here, Italian collides with mountain cuisine, resulting in dishes designed as much by the forager and hunter as by the pasta maker. Packer’s beef tartare gets added umami from wild porcini and pickled beech mushrooms, along with a quail egg and just-fried potato chips. The house-made fettuccine comes with shreds of braised rabbit in a light lemon-thyme cream sauce beneath walnuts, grilled rapini, Gorgonzola, and fresh greens. Meaty offerings, from a roasted half chicken to a monster porterhouse alla Fiorentina for two, go beyond à la carte steak-house service with unique sauces and thoughtful sides—barley risotto, white bean ragout, or roasted fingerlings, for example. Even with all that going on, we wouldn’t return without ordering the exquisite wood-grilled heirloom carrots with ras el hanout and house-made labneh.

Lo Stella Ristorante

• Location: 1135 Bannock St., Denver (Golden Triangle)
• Price: $$$

Lo Stella Ristorante’s roots are in Portofino, where one family has operated a restaurant by the Ligurian Sea for more than 175 years. Luckily for those of us who can’t fly to Italy for a special meal, eighth-generation family member Alessandro Polo decided to bring Lo Stella to Denver in 2014. The menu at the relaxed Golden Triangle eatery stays faithful to the original. The recipe for the fish ravioli in a creamy shrimp sauce has been in the family for decades, as has the spaghetti slicked with Nonno Puppo’s marinara sauce. If the history isn’t convincing enough, pick out a bottle from the all-Italian wine list, which has both affordable and splurge-worthy bottles.

Luca

• Location: 711 Grant St, Denver (Capitol Hill)
• Price: $$$

Named after founders Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno’s first son, Luca debuted as an Italian complement to the couple’s French-leaning Mizuna just around the corner in Capitol Hill. “I started the [in-house] salumi program 22 years ago because there wasn’t an opportunity to bring these things in from Italy,” Frank says. “Our core is artisanal Italian food. It would be so easy to give up on that and buy premade products, but that’s not who we are.” That means starting with the house-made burrata and a salumi board loaded with meats cured in Bonanno’s purpose-built aging room are a must. Beyond that, the sourdough pizzas and clever reimaginings of the classics—like parsnip agnolotti topped with carbonara-style pancetta, pecorino, and sauce—keep the menu fresh.

Maíz y Fuego

• Location: La Plaza Colorado, 15200 E. Colfax Ave., Aurora
• Price: $

Aurora’s La Plaza Colorado is a portal straight to the street markets of Mexico City, complete with a central fountain and rows of raucous vendors hawking everything from stereo equipment to cowboy boots. Beyond that, you’ll find more than a dozen food counters, including Maíz y Fuego, where brothers Luis and Heriberto Gutierrez spin up what they call a “fusión de sabores” of Italian and Mexican dishes. The chefs, who also run Denver’s strictly Italian Cucina Bella, keep the cuisines mostly separate, with a slate of tacos and other antojitos alongside a half-dozen pasta dishes. But for a mashup, the diabla shrimp starts with Mama’s-kitchen pomodoro and linguine before being blasted with both fresh and dried chiles and a shower of queso fresco and cilantro. The result captures both Calabria and Cabo. Equally enticing is the fusilli diavola, studded with mushrooms and spicy sausage in a smoky chipotle crema.

Na Favola

• Location: 5909 S. University Blvd., Greenwood Village
• Price: $$

Hospitality—or call it straightforward Italian charm—is at the heart of Greenwood Village’s Na Favola, a bright new star in a neighborhood sorely in need of a locally owned sit-down dinner destination. (Previous tenant Cherry Crest Seafood Restaurant & Market closed in 2022 after 37 years in the midcentury modern Cherry Crest Shopette retail strip.) Former partner Rocco Marsiglia and Giulia Del Toro teamed up with brothers Daniele and Silvio Pellico to open Na Favola in late 2024, serving simple cuisine that doesn’t need to go overboard with the cheese and sauce to impress.

Our favorite pizza, the Mortazza, with its folds of mortadella draped over each slice, looks like something you might construct at home at 3 a.m., but the hidden pesto and stracciatella cheese give it a fresh, lively taste. Also leftover-worthy (if you can keep from eating it all) are the paccheri pasta dishes made with tubes so big they collapse on themselves when cooked, trapping lots of sauce in the process. The Italiani version comes with both tomato sauce and pesto, while the paccheri golosi sports a creamy mushroom sauce with a confetti of crisped prosciutto. Between the classic cuisine and good cheer, Na Favola feels like it’s been here for decades.

Oliver’s Italian

• Location: 4950 S. Yosemite St., Greenwood Village
• Price: $$

Chef-restaurateur Sean Huggard (owner of Blue Island Oyster Bar & Seafood) launched this Italian concept in 2023. The airy, verdant space feels timeless and classic, bolstered by equally comforting food and drink offerings. Pair a white Negroni with the pecorino-adorned pasta al limone, or go to town on a Roman-style pinsa (akin to a traditional pizza but closer to a flatbread) topped with mortadella, buffalo mozzarella, pesto, roasted garlic cream, and pistachio. Of course, there are plenty of fresh oysters on the menu, too, including an Oliver’s-exclusive La Dolce Vita oyster sourced from the hospitality group’s own beds off Long Island, New York.

Panzano

• Location: 909 17th St., Denver (Downtown)
• Price: $$$

For a quarter of a century, Panzano, located inside the Kimpton Hotel Monaco, has been a Denver institution, providing handcrafted antipasti, pasta, and secondi plates to business travelers, tourists, and locals alike. In June 2021, chef David Gross took command of the kitchen, where he continues to put a Colorado spin on the eatery’s classic northern Italian fare. Look for treasures like bell-shaped campanelle pasta coated in wild boar and veal Bolognese, along with Colorado specialties like elk loin and bison short ribs.

Parisi

• Location: 4401 Tennyson St., Denver (Berkeley)
• Price: $$

If you’re looking for an approachable Italian experience, look no further than Berkeley’s fast-casual Parisi. The brightly lit dining room is relaxed and its menu rife with options to satisfy your every Italian hankering—pizzas, pastas, and paninis, plus a small market’s worth of dried pastas, olive oils, sauces, and take-and-bake dishes. Don’t miss the hearty, skin-on porchetta, which comes rolled around buttered herbs, basted with savory jus, and accompanied by your choice of two sides (we like the roasted potatoes and wilted greens and beans). We also love the panzerotti, fried pizza dough stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto.

Pasta Jay’s

• Location: 1001 Pearl St., Boulder
• Price: $$

Jay Elowsky opened his first restaurant on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall with his parents, Lowell and Jean. “I moved to Boulder in January 1988 and opened in September that year,” Elowsky says. “We had an immediate line out the door, and that hasn’t changed. But you’ve got to stay relevant, so I don’t think we’ve hit the pinnacle. It’s a battle every day. You have to keep going after new markets when the demographics change.” While the sharp, tangy red sauce is legendary in Colorado, the menu at this Boulder staple is big enough to accommodate every craving, whether you’re in the mood for East Coast–style sandwiches, prime rib, or even breakfast.

Restaurant Olivia

• Location: 290 S. Downing St., Denver (Washington Park)
• Price: $$$$

Chef Ty Leon and partners Heather Morrison and Austin Carson combined their mutual appreciation for great pasta and warm hospitality to open Restaurant Olivia in 2020. The spot is an excellent date-night destination, thanks to a killer wine and cocktail list, outstanding handmade pastas, and a romantic ambiance. During dinner service, the restaurant bustles with patrons in ivory leather booths sipping cocktails named after key ingredients (such as blood orange, rosemary, cherry, mint, and coffee) and twirling spaghetti studded with poached clams. To enjoy the best of the team’s seasonal offerings, opt for the five-course tasting menu; current highlights include black truffle risotto with basil and mascarpone, and ricotta gnocchi made with regionally grown spelt and topped with venison ragù and purple carrot purée.

Romano’s Italian Restaurant

• Location: 5666 S. Windermere St., Littleton
• Price: $

When it comes to family-run Colorado red sauce joints, you can’t do much better than Romano’s. A Littleton staple since 1967, Romano’s is operated by John and Sue Romano, the son and daughter of founders Neil and Ellie Romano. “Our strongest asset here is the community,” Sue says. “They’re very loyal—they love that personal connection. When my mom and dad started, Littleton was a very different place. But we’ve both grown and changed together.”

The restaurant’s hearty, marinara-drenched specialties makes a drive to the southern ’burbs worthwhile. All of the staples are well represented: pitch-perfect eggplant parm, lasagna bolstered with rivers of melty provolone cheese, ultra-garlicky shrimp scampi, and house-made cannoli for dessert. With its trellises of plastic grapes, Tiffany-style lamps, and Chianti-colored vinyl booths packed with regulars, it’s just the place for post-soccer-game pizza parties with the kids or casual date nights without them. Just be prepared to wait for a table, especially on weekends.

Saverina

• Location: 6985 E. Chenango Ave., Denver (Southmoor Park)
• Price: $$$

Hotel dining can be homogenous; where does the lobby end and the restaurant begin? The Kimpton Claret Hotel, which opened at Belleview Station in 2024, bucks that stereotype with Saverina, a dining destination designed for locals, not just travelers. “We’ve noticed that people here want to eat more seasonally and eat local ingredients, so there will always be changes on the menu,” says Eric Santiago, Kimpton’s head of restaurant development.

A few items are sure to create return customers (whether from Centennial or Tampa), beginning with the house-made bucatini with what the menu calls “fresh” pesto. How fresh, you ask? The kitchen pounds the pesto into a lovely, almost creamy sauce in a stone mortar for each order. (If you listen closely, you might hear the quiet tok tok tok as yours is made.) The focaccia uses flour from Boulder’s Dry Storage and a sourdough starter born six months before the restaurant opened. Also praiseworthy is the roasted chicken, rubbed with shio koji (a Japanese culture) and blasted in the pizza oven at 700 degrees for the ultimate crackly skin.

Spuntino

• Location: 2639 W. 32nd Ave., Denver (LoHi)
• Price: $$$

Doting service and plates of Indian-influenced Italian food make a winning combo at Spuntino, a Highland gem owned by husband-and-wife team Elliot Strathmann (general manager and beverage pro) and chef Cindhura Reddy. The arancini with seasonal accompaniments is always a good bet, and the capellini aglio e olio—hand-rolled strands of pasta kissed with olive oil, Indian-spice-preserved garlic, garlic breadcrumbs, and a runny 63-degree egg—is a must-order if it’s on the menu. Whatever you choose, let the kind staff walk you through the unique wine and spirit lists, full of surprises such as homemade aperitivi and amari made from locally foraged and grown botanicals.

Stella’s Cucina

• Location: 1123 Walnut St., Boulder
• Price: $$$$

Depending on when you visit, Stella’s Cucina gives off the vibe of a speakeasy or a dancey late-night bar, but it is first and foremost an Italian restaurant—and a dazzling one, at that. The swanky art deco–influenced design of its main dining room is bright and brassy, and the 360-degree bar at the center of the space means that, no matter where you’re sitting, you can watch the bartenders shake up your espresso martini or whiskey sour. The menu is similarly showy: whole, roasted Mediterranean sea bass; a bone-in pork chop with a fennel butter emulsion; and sea scallop risotto topped with summer truffle. We recommend checking the restaurant’s Instagram so you can make your reservation at a time when Stella’s is hosting live music.

Tavernetta Vail

• Location: 1 Vail Road, Vail
• Price: $$$$

Precision—rather than Nonna’s little-bit-of-this recipes—defines the menu at LoDo’s Tavernetta. The original has been plying that quintessence behind Union Station since 2017 (see the postage-stamp-perfect francobolli with crenelated edges as evidence), but its newer ski-town sibling opened in late 2024, offering an even posher experience with a distinct Vail bent.

Full caviar service (not the cute bumps trending in Denver bars) doesn’t come cheap, at $185, but it does come with a full ounce of Regiis Ova Ossetra. Similarly, $250 will get you a dry-aged rib-eye from California’s Flannery Beef. Each dish, whether quail with Alpine sausage or rigatoni with lamb ragù, becomes a work of art approaching the group’s Michelin-starred Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder. Wines, too, rise to the occasion, thanks to co-owner and master sommelier Bobby Stuckey, who stocks the cellar with esoteric labels (would that we could splurge on a bottle of 2019 Gaja Sperss Barolo) and vintages going back more than 20 years.