Best Italian restaurant

To count the tables at Pomodoro, you don't even need to resort to your toes. But while many a North End trattoria mistakenly equates cramped quarters with culinary authenticity, this place lends credence to the claim. Neither old-school nor cutting-edge, Pomodoro aims simply for full-flavored goodness. The house antipasto is a case in point, juxtaposing punchy stand-alone ingredients like prosciutto and parmesan with more complex white-bean and calamari salads. Meanwhile, standard red-sauce fare gets a snazzy makeover here, as when chicken and wild mushrooms jazz up pasta carbonara or a green-olive risotto rejuvenates veal scaloppine.

By "red sauce," of course, we mean Italian-American, circa 1955; and while we may be implying gloppy and indiscriminate, we should be thinking earnest and hearty in every sense. That's certainly what fans of La Groceria are thinking. They're thinking of the specialties this family-run Cambridge storefront has been turning out for decades. Eggplant parmigiana and veal saltimbocca. Chicken marsala and linguini with clams. Meatball sandwiches and pasta primavera. Scampi and lasagna. It's all here, waiting to be discovered by the next generation of homesick MIT students, or rediscovered by long-lost clientele. But you Phoenix readers, it seems, have already found it.

Pomodoro, 319 Hanover Street, Boston, (617) 367-4348. La Groceria, 853 Main Street, Cambridge, (617) 497-4214.