It’s rather easy to associate Italian fare with comfort food. After all, the cuisine — which spans pizzas, pastas, cured meats and seafood — is generally heavy in carbs and cheese, hence making for pretty hearty meals.
While it may not be our go-to option when we’re trying to shed a few pounds or eat clean (confession time: when presented with a choice between pasta or a salad, we’d gladly pick the former), one can’t deny that Italian food is, well, absolutely delicious. The mere thought of a crisp wood-fired pizza or creamy heap of pasta is enough to get us drooling.
Like many other cuisines such as French and Japanese, Italian food varies across the country’s regions. Lombardy, for instance, is famed for risotto dishes such as risotto alla milanese (which is infused with saffron), while Tuscany is known for its Florentine steaks, and Campania for pizza. Here in Singapore, we’re fortunate to have an abundance of Italian restaurants to choose from, with a number of eateries serving up a variety of dishes from different parts of Italy — so we don’t even need to make a trip there.
If you’re up for a carb-laden, utterly sumptuous meal this week, these are the best Italian restaurants in Singapore, which offer everything from pasta to burrata and steak.
5 best Italian restaurants in Singapore to visit:
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Opened in 2003, Garibaldi is pretty much an institution in the local dining scene. The newly minted one-Michelin-starred restaurant offers a repertoire of traditional Italian fare, with highlights such as risotto with Porcini mushroom, grilled Iberico pork rack, rigatoni with beef bolognese, and pan-seared scallops. For those feeling extra indulgent, the restaurant also has a caviar-focused menu of dishes such as wagyu beef tartare and cold angel hair pasta — all of which are served with Carelian caviar obtained from Siberian sturgeons that are farmed in an indoor facility in Finland.
2 /6
Operated by famed chefs Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton, as well as prominent US restaurateur Joseph Bastianich, Osteria Mozza is an upscale Italian eatery that used to be at Marina Bay Sands, but will reopen its doors at the upcoming Hilton Singapore Orchard come March 2022. Expect an all-day dining restaurant, and a lobby lounge and bar, with reinvigorated classics from Silverton’s one-Michelin-starred outpost in LA, as well as new dishes specially created for Singpaore. What we’re looking forward to the most, however, is that famous mozzarella bar and its variety of burrata and ricotta dishes to make a comeback.
Stay tuned for more information.
3 /6
Amò has already become one of our favourite spots for hearty, contemporary Italian cuisine. The restaurant’s operated by the Il Lido Group and serves an extensive variety of antipasti, pastas and pizzas. Must-try dishes include bone marrow pizza (which is layered with wild garlic pesto and anchovy salsa verde, and baked in a wood-fired oven) and spaghettoni with Boston lobster and tarragon — which comes with the lobster helpfully cut up into portions, so you don’t have to worry about getting your hands dirty. While you’re there, pick up a pizza of two as well.
Amò, 33 Hong Kong Street, Singapore 059672, +65 6723 7733
4 /6
This classy restaurant at Mandarin Oriental offers a repertoire of traditional Italian cuisine incorporated with produce imported from Italy. It launched a refreshed menu of dishes such as homemade stuffed tortelli with brie mousse (which features oyster mushroom, black truffle and a creamy caper sauce), and our favourite, Pan-Roasted Sanchouku Wagyu Beef Tenderloin— think braised eggplant, smoked mashed potatoes, cherry tomato carpaccio and a red wine jus to tie it all together.
5 /6
Don’t expect a never-ending menu of pastas here, but what Bar Cicheti lacks in numbers, it makes up in flavours. The compact menu offers classics such as the cacio e pepe, but try Paccheri — with its slow-braised polpo (octopus) and Agnolotti while you’re there too. The latter sees handmade pasta stuffed with a meat sauce made from grass-fed beef cheeks, and is as fragrant as it is hearty.
6 /6
For gatherings with friends and family over good pasta and even better pizza, look no further than Publico Ristorante. The breezy alfresco joint is well known for its wood-fired pizzas (go for the diavola, burrata, or tartufata), each loaded with toppings and plenty of cheese to be the perfect accompaniment to the cocktails and spritzes on offer there. If you’re into the gains, the 18-Hour Beef Short Ribs and Bisteca Ribeye are good places to start.