Italian dining explained: pasta, pizza and where to find it

Simple ingredients, regional depth

Italian cuisine is among the world's most loved, defined by simple, high-quality ingredients and enormous regional variety rather than complexity for its own sake. Pasta, pizza, risotto, good olive oil and fresh produce sit at the heart of the table, but the specifics change every hundred kilometres in Italy itself. Abroad, Italian usually means a familiar core of pasta and pizza, and it travels well: it is a steady presence in both countries we cover, with 142 listings in Turkey and 157 in the Netherlands.

The core dishes

• Pasta: from a simple aglio e olio to rich ragùs, the everyday backbone; shapes and sauces are deeply regional, from carbonara and cacio e pepe in Rome to pesto in Liguria.
• Pizza: at its best wood-fired and thin, from the classic Neapolitan margherita outward; a large casual category in its own right across both countries.
• Risotto: slow-cooked rice, the northern Italian counterpart to pasta, famously alla milanese with saffron.
• Antipasti: the opening spread of cured meats, cheeses, marinated vegetables and bruschetta that starts a proper meal.
• Secondi: the meat or fish course, from osso buco and saltimbocca to a simple grilled fish, usually served plainly after the pasta.
• Tiramisu and gelato: the coffee-and-mascarpone dessert and the dense Italian ice cream that close the meal, alongside panna cotta and cannoli.

Where to find it

Italian is unusual among our cuisines in being almost evenly split across the two countries, with 142 listings in Turkey and 157 in the Netherlands. In Turkey it clusters in the big cities, with Istanbul holding the most (42 listings) and a scene that ranges from neighbourhood trattorias to upscale contemporary dining. In the Netherlands it is one of the strongest international cuisines, and Amsterdam alone holds 25, a dense run of pizzerias and trattorias, with Rotterdam close behind. Pizza is a large casual category in its own right on top of these counts, larger in fact than the Italian tag itself, at 156 listings in Turkey and 186 in the Netherlands.

Top-rated Italian restaurants

Here are some of the most-reviewed Italian listings across both countries, ordered by public Google review count. The rating is Google's public figure, shown for reference and linked to each listing, not our endorsement, and kept separate from e.restaurant diner reviews. The split between Amsterdam and Istanbul at the top mirrors how evenly the cuisine is shared between the two countries.

How to tell a good one

Italian abroad covers a wide spread, from genuine regional cooking to generic pasta-and-pizza menus, and a few signals help you read which is which. A short menu is usually a good sign: a kitchen confident in a handful of dishes tends to beat one offering forty. For pizza, look for a wood-fired oven and a thin, slightly charred base rather than a thick, uniform one. For pasta, fresh and house-made will always outclass a heavy, cream-laden standard. None of this is a rule, but together it separates a real trattoria from a tourist menu.

The two countries express Italian differently. In the Netherlands it is one of the established international cuisines, woven into everyday city dining, especially in Amsterdam. In Turkey it sits more at the contemporary, often upscale end, concentrated in the big cities, alongside a separate and very large pizza category aimed at casual and fast dining.