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If you're tired of Italian restaurants trying to out-Molto each other, yet repelled by the thought of Little Italy, this old-school spot is your salvation. Run by the seven Mosconi siblings since 1976, the enormous Northern Italian menu, with more than 100 items, is particularly influenced by the family's roots in Emilia-Romagna. Brother Pietro Mosconi leads the kitchen, making his own pastas and mozzarella and simmering simple sauces. He shuns experimentation to ensure that the solid expectations of the clientele are properly met. Many come for spaghetti and meatballs or soft, cheesy manicotti, lightly dressed in a fresh-tasting tomato sauce. But there's more to Mosconi than red sauce. Between the minestrone packed full of carrots, celery, escarole, and white beans, and bursting with garden flavor, and the delicate, thread-thin ribbons of tagliarini with artichoke hearts in a buttery white wine sauce, it's a wonder there isn’t more buzz about this place. The décor features all the familiar clichés: celeb photos adorning the bar room, three interior dining rooms decked out in gilded-framed landscape paintings, and an all-weather back garden that gets its color from ferns and other greens. The suited-up or leather-jacketed patrons all seems to be revisiting happy memories, and their fondness has as much to do with the food as with nostalgia. — Kathleen Squires

Minestrone, $7; taglierini al carciofini, $17.50; manicotti, $14