Metro Detroit has many exciting destinations to enjoy pasta, whether it be at an old-school Italian American red sauce joint, or one of the city’s notable new American restaurants. Increasingly, pasta here is an expression of Michigan’s diverse produce and seasonality. After all, meat sauce just hits differently in the throes of an icy winter, and those fresh summer tomatoes are a revelation come July. Local, seasonal produce is also one of the main tenets of Italian cooking, and in Michigan, that doctrine is honored lovingly.
The Best Pasta Restaurants in Metro Detroit
Heaping bowls of Bolognese, pillowy agnolotti, and comforting carbonara pasta made with freshly milled flour
Danny Palumbo is a Detroit-based writer who has been covering restaurants, writing recipes, and publishing essays about food for the last eight years.
These days, restaurants are paying more attention to where they source the flour needed to make a delicious, al dente pasta, pulling inspiration from across Italy’s diverse culinary landscape, and are introducing unexpected ingredients and flavors that one might not expect from a hearty plate of Bolognese or linguine. While one could certainly look to an Italian restaurant guide for a taste of Italy, this diverse selection of Detroit restaurants do pasta best.
New to the Map: Forest, Mabel Gray, and Selden Standard are new to the map, and Mom’s Spaghetti and Mad Nice leave the map.
— Additional reporting by Serena Maria Daniels and Brenna Houck
The Best Pasta Restaurants in Metro Detroit
Heaping bowls of Bolognese, pillowy agnolotti, and comforting carbonara pasta made with freshly milled flour
Danny Palumbo is a Detroit-based writer who has been covering restaurants, writing recipes, and publishing essays about food for the last eight years.
Metro Detroit has many exciting destinations to enjoy pasta, whether it be at an old-school Italian American red sauce joint, or one of the city’s notable new American restaurants. Increasingly, pasta here is an expression of Michigan’s diverse produce and seasonality. After all, meat sauce just hits differently in the throes of an icy winter, and those fresh summer tomatoes are a revelation come July. Local, seasonal produce is also one of the main tenets of Italian cooking, and in Michigan, that doctrine is honored lovingly.
These days, restaurants are paying more attention to where they source the flour needed to make a delicious, al dente pasta, pulling inspiration from across Italy’s diverse culinary landscape, and are introducing unexpected ingredients and flavors that one might not expect from a hearty plate of Bolognese or linguine. While one could certainly look to an Italian restaurant guide for a taste of Italy, this diverse selection of Detroit restaurants do pasta best.
New to the Map: Forest, Mabel Gray, and Selden Standard are new to the map, and Mom’s Spaghetti and Mad Nice leave the map.
— Additional reporting by Serena Maria Daniels and Brenna Houck
Giovanni’s
Giovanni’s is a holdover from a different era of Detroit dining, tucked away in the far-Southwest neighborhood of Oakwood Heights near the Rouge River. While the area leans industrial these days, inside find a bastion of old-school hospitality with black tablecloths, jacketed waitstaff, and classic recipes from the old country that have drawn the likes of Frank Sinatra himself to dine. The menu favors homemade pastas and sauces tracing roots to the San Marino region of Italy. Think cheese and meat: Simple pestos, Bolognese, and ricotta dumplings.
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Brenna Houck
Tiliani Italian Restaurant
This all-halal coastal Italian seafood fine dining establishment features meaty mains as well as pasta and wood-fired, naturally-leavened pizza. Expect exciting pasta dishes like cappelletti in a white sausage Bolognese, cacio e pepe topped with crispy mushrooms, linguine with smoked lamb belly, mafaldine with a medley of shrimp, clams, and scallops in a fermented chile butter, among others. Reservations and takeout orders are accepted through Tock.
Tiliani
El Barzon
Fine dining restaurant El Barzon features two distinct menus: one for Mexican food and another focused on Italian. Start with chips and salsa, followed by fresh homemade Linguini El Barzon (linguini in little neck clams, shrimp, olive oil, white wine, garlic, tomato sauce, and spicy red pepper flakes with croutons). Chef and proprietor Norberto Garita honed his skills cooking Italian food in New York and at the famed Il Posto Ristorante in Southfield before opening this Southwest Detroit staple. Online ordering is available for takeout and reservations are recommended, particularly during patio season when the romantic alfresco seating area opens up.
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El Barzon
Ottava Via
This Corktown spot offers a modern spin on Italian favorites. From charcuterie to cocktails to a hearty dinner feast complemented by a glass of wine, Ottava Via hits many notes. Pasta fans can fill up on penne alla arrabbiata, fettuccine alfredo, truffle butter bucatini, and more. Ottava Via is particularly popular during patio season, thanks to an outdoor fireplace and bocce ball lanes. Book a table on Resy.
Ottava Via
Adelina
Celebrity chef Fabio Viviani is behind this new downtown establishment, which offers an Italian menu inspired by the broader Mediterranean region. Chefs Marco Dalla Fontana, previously executive chef at the lauded Italian restaurant Bacco Ristorante in Southfield, and Adam Curry helm the kitchen. The menu’s pastas are made fresh on site, including rigatoni and casarecce in halal wagyu beef Bolognese. There’s also a weekly rotating pasta option.
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San Morello
This stylish eatery from NoHo Hospitality specializes in southern Italian cuisine. San Morello’s menu features handmade pasta and even offers its own Pasta Club with kits for assembling a meal at home. Expect dishes like lamb Bolognese and the My Grandmother’s Ravioli — an item NoHo cofounder chef Andrew Carmellini originally served at Locanda Verde in New York. It’s an anchor to the Shinola Hotel, so expect hotel restaurant prices. Reservations are available through the website.
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Nicole Franzen/San Morello
Selden Standard
You’ll always find a few pastas on the menu at Selden Standard, a new American restaurant that’s been an anchor in the Cass Corridor neighborhood since 2014, and you can count on them to be fresh, seasonal, and inspired. In the spring, enjoy homemade orecchiette with rapini, stracciatella, anchovy, and lemon. In the summer, the sweet corn agnolotti is a hot ticket, and a favorite among Selden loyalists. Rigatoni with fennel sausage, cavatelli with chicken sugo, and other inspired pasta dishes all rotate in and out. There’s a lot of reasons to visit Selden, but they deserve flowers for their always amazing pasta dishes. Online orders are accepted for carryout.
Danny Palumbo
SheWolf Pastificio & Bar
This modern Roman restaurant is upping the stakes for Italian cuisine in Detroit by milling flour for its handmade and die-cut pasta and focaccia. Chef Anthony Lombardo’s menu features pasta essentials like cacio e pepe and carbonara, as well as intriguing seasonal dishes. For dessert, don’t miss out on the panna cotta and gelato. Reservations are available on Tock.
Oak and Reel
Chef Jared Gadbaw brings his passion for seafood-centric Italian cuisine with his Eater Award-winning contemporary Italian restaurant, Oak and Reel. The menu combines local ingredients with seafood from waters around the world. Snapper, octopus, and tuna Bolognese and squid ink pasta offer bright, bold flavors. One often, if not always, can find at least one pasta dish on the tasting menu ($109 per person and $95 on Sundays). For a nightcap, head to the lower level to hit up the Upright, a cozy cocktail bar.
Oak and Reel
La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita translates to “the sweet life,” which sums up this old-world Italian eatery that’s known for a lively brunch full of delicious cocktails, a cozy space with arched windows to enjoy various regional Italian specialties, and a verdant garden patio in Detroit’s Palmer Park. The menu currently boasts a whopping 13 pasta dishes, including lasagna, linguine vongole, and gnocchi with cream sauce.
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La Dolce Vita
Pop’s For Italian
This sprawling Italian restaurant in Ferndale serves up Neapolitan-certified pizza as well as homemade pastas like the carbonara and shrimp scampi with white wine, lemon, and garlic butter sauce. There’s also a robust Pasta Al Forno section with baked options like lasagna and baked gnocchi. Reservations are available on Resy and there’s also online ordering for takeout.
Pop’s For Italian
Mabel Gray
Outright, Mabel Gray isn’t an Italian restaurant, but on occasion they serve one of the best linguine and clams you’ll ever have. The dish itself is fleeting, but diners can expect it to reliably pop up on the menu in December. On top of that, a couple times a year chef James Rigato and John Vermiglio combine to form their Italian American takeover Sunday at Nonna’s, which features big chicken cutlets, meatballs, salad, and plenty of pasta like sweet corn cavatelli. There’s usually a pasta dish on Mabel’s menu, and, whatever it is, you know it’s going to be seasonal, thoughtful, and delicious. Reservations are offered on Tock.
Brenna Houck
Forest
Some of the best pasta in metro Detroit lies in this elegant neighborhood restaurant in Birmingham. Nick Janutol, now culinary director for Chickpea Hospitality, a former chef de cuisine under Brian Polcyn when it was still the storied Forest Grill helped usher in Forest’s next chapter. Now experienced chef Talia Clark carries the torch. The dough at Forest is rolled with a mattarello and shaped into garganelli, tagliatelle, and ravioli. What isn’t cut by hand is fed through a bronze died pasta extruder to make shapes like rigatoni. Expect seasonal pastas like sweet pea agnolotti, squid ink puttanesca, and morels with garganelli. A pitch-perfect tagliatelle Bolognese is a constant on the menu, for those who value reliability. Reservations are accepted on Resy.
Danny Palumbo
