Granduca Di Sicilia, New York

As proof of its staff’s penchant for seafood, Granduca Di Sicilia goes one step beyond mounting models of fish on the walls—instead, it mounted an entire boat. The colorfully painted, life-size vessel is draped with fishing baskets and nets and is surrounded by smaller indicators of the restaurant's Sicilian authenticity. Rustic tapestries, wagon-wheel chandeliers, and busts spread throughout the space also speak to its rustic roots. However, it's the smells emanating from the kitchen that seal the ambiance.

"New York has no shortage of pizza," Gothamist reports, "but Granduca rises above with its Sicilian pies hot out of the wood-burning brick oven." The meticulously decorated disks sport toppings such as the Stromboli's smoked italian bacon or the Granduca's buffalo mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, and basil. These signature slices complement a menu of housemade pastas, meat entrees, and seafood plates, including Messina-style breaded swordfish and pan-seared tuna steak. The fare and the decor together serve as an homage to Granduca's Sicilian location in a 14th-century family manor. Indeed, Eater writes that nearly all of the restaurant's details were imported from the island, from tiles that were handmade in Caltagirone to wooden puppets that were presumably coughed up by migrating whales.