After my 7 years of up and down this Island, even though been living here permanently only for 6 months, I have thoroughly “searched” the best and most authentic Italian restaurants in town, the are either run by Italian people or by Taiwanese who trained in Italy or with Italians, so they are legit (not just traditional food, also more modern takes, the important is the method and concept and the taste). Below my very personal list with my comments:
La Mole: Piedmontese food with modern takes and some Italian classics too, very good wine selection
La Locanda: Mostly Italian classics, with some focus on Venetian food since the owner is from Verona. Impressive wine selection.
Divino Taipei (Daan location): Modern Italian Cuisine with niche wine selection
Domo De Sardegna: Traditional homestyle Sardinian food with an amazing Sardinian wine selection, probably the widest I have found outside of Sardinia proper
Zoca: not the traditional Neapolitan Pizza, but pizza as we make in the north of Italy (the owner is from Verona). Decent wines, very good gelato.
A Mano: Traditional Neapolitan Style Pizza with very good appetizers and amazing gelato
Andrea Style (Neihu): Gourmet style pizza and daily choice of pasta
Bencotto: Fancy Italian at the Mandarin, wine outrageously expensive, the set menus fairly priced tbh
Focoso (Daan): modern Italian with very nice cocktails
Pizzeria Oggi: traditional Neapolitan Pizza with some Roman style pizzas, they have several outlets in the city, but the traditional pies are legit. Other food not so much
Solo Pizza: Traditional Neapolitan Pizza and some fried food (very usual in pizzerias in the south of Italy), the pies are small but very good.
The above are the ones I tried and can vouch for them, there are still a few left to try on my wishlist, and will go soon, so I will keep updating this.
Hence, if you want to feel a bit like in Italy without travelling, these places can give you a very good taste of my country.
Please do not complain too much on prices, most of the ingredients are imported from Italy, and Taiwan is stupidly expensive to import like wine, cheese and foodstuff in general. Can’t even import Italian pork products due to swine fever (but Spanish is ok… I guess “”“goodwill”“” makes miracles). These are places for special occasions, not for everyday chow.
This is an excellent idea for a thread. Thank you for posting it!
For cash-strapped forumosans, perhaps the cheapest in that list would be Solo Pizza. It’s a branch of a Japanese operation and while I don’t think it’s close to being the best pizza in Taipei, it is very good value.
Disclaimer: I only ate at their older location near Zhongshan MRT Station; I have not been to their newer location next to Yuanshuan MRT.
Yes, solo pizza is the only foreign branch outside of Japan. It is not the best since it is too small for me, but the quality is high and it is legit. I went to the yuanshan joint, very small, no booking possible.
I wasn’t going to reply to this nonsensical attack from a neighbor. But enough is enough. In your dreams prosciutto is better than jamón ibérico.
Nevertheless, I’m going to try Solo Pizza right now because I trust you about Italian food. It’s more than obvious than you don’t have a clue about the real good food in the Mediterranean.
Never ever said jamon is bad. Did I? But Jamon is either too oily or salty (depending on the type) for some recipes.
Spanish food is good, never said otherwise. However, can be a bit more limited on the breath of offerings.
Anyways, this is a thread on Italian food, I was complaining that TW allow imports of Spanish ham but completely forbids any Italian pork product. That was my lament, not the quality, thanks for attacking me completely uncalled. Hope you can enjoy good food and if you have any recommendation for good Spanish places here, I am really craving for some cocquetas or tortillas.
there was a very short period when they let Italian pork products. Beef and chicken are allowed.
However, and this is insider knowledge from an Italian importer and distributor here, the Gov literally asked for so many certifications and super strict import procedures that the main consortia of ham producers just gave them the finger, TW counts for basically 0.00…% of worldwide sales, so can survive without.
I was mostly jocking around. Well, I do think that jamón ibérico is better than prosciutto, and the market agrees because is more expensive. But, other than that, I love Italian food.
At least you have a variety of offerings anywhere you go. Sometimes it has a cost to be that famous and people commit sins like 義大利麵*. But Spanish food is not nearly as world renowned as Italian, so it is more difficult to find it.
Talking about 義大利麵, I went to Monini, in Tamsui, last weekend. I thought it was impossible to me to say this, but it was a 義大利麵 that didn’t suck.
It’d be great if you set up your own thread on this topic, letting us know what you think of the available choices in the Taipei Area or wherever you live.
that’s the issue with Spanish food, I only went to a very fancy one here (technically is Basque…), el molino de urdaniz (1 michelin star) and it was very good, but… can’t afford it often haha. Even in HK had only 3 nice Spanish places I really enjoyed, here I am in the dark.
Big fan of Andrea Style. He imports all of his ingredients including the pizza oven. Everything is made from scratch. But he’s not only pizza, he usually has great desserts, salad, gnocchi, pasta etc. He was having issues with the landlord for awhile. Hoping he worked that out.
Andrea is a good friend, he is having so many issues in finding a new place. He wants to move out ASAP. Finally he managed to fix the oven, for a good 5 months he couldn’t make pizzas!
Went to eat there ytd haha. He has a very rigid philosophy of quality, but he uses also many local ingredients if they are good (like the mozzarella, he buys it from a local artisanal dairy, called a mano) or organic greens (like the arugula) from a farm in Taichung. But yes, most of it is imported from Italy.
Most good ovens for pizza are imported straight from Italy, mostly Naples. They just make them better.
