• Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto Il Ristorante

  903 Madison Ave., nr. 73rd St.; 212-517-7700

  You can’t talk about pasta sheets in this town without talking about Mark Ladner and his supercolossal 100-layer leaning tower of lasagna at Del Posto. But that thing is in a league of its own. Practically a separate species. Unfair to the competition and illegal in 49 states. For something more down-to-Earth, we recommend Cesare Casella’s new pasticcio all’Amatriciana ($25). Casella calls it pasticcio (typically a sort of savory pie), but you will recognize it as lasagna through and through. It’s a half-dozen or so gossamer sheets of dough cut into rounds and layered with a rich meaty sauce and a buttery béchamel, the whole thing topped off with a golden Grana-­and-Pecorino crust. The genius of the dish, however, lies in the bringing together of two heretofore ­unacquainted cucina italiana classics: the fantastically porky all’Amatriciana—a guanciale-­enhanced sauce almost exclusively associated with bucatini—and Garfield’s favorite foodstuff. For pasta lovers, it’s an exciting why-didn’t-someone-think-of-this-before moment, and a thumb in the eye to the lasagna alla Bolognese hegemony.

From the 2013 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine