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Guide

50 of the best Italian restaurants in Greater Manchester

2 years ago

Neapolitan pizza at Rudy’s, Sicilian pasta at Sicilian NQ and Venetian cicchetti at Cibus in Levenshulme. Manchester is fully packed with Italian treats just waiting to be gobbled. You’d be surprised how many styles of pizza you can fit in one city and how many types of pasta The Pasta Factory can make in a day. Read on to see fifty of the best and most popular Italian restaurants in Greater Manchester.

  • Book Now Manchester City Centre

    Ciaooo Neapolitan Pizzeria

    Restaurant - Italian

    Cult pizzeria Ciaooo may not be as well-known as some of its beautifully blistered-based brethren, but that’s all to the good. At least there’s a chance of getting a table. As it is, it’s often full of savvy locals who know just where to get some of the best pizzas in Manchester – on Swan Street at the top of Great Ancoats Street it transpires.

    Service is excellent and the pizzas are even better. There is a wide selection with a mix of classics and modern inventions. Most importantly, the dough rises above its competitors. It is puffed-up pillowy perfection.

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  • Book Now Levenshulme

    Cibus

    Bars

    Once a stall at Levy Market, then a pop-up pizzeria above Fred’s Ale House, Cibus took baby steps to get to where it is today; a fully-fledged and much-praised Italian restaurant and bar on Levenshulme high street, and the winner of The Good Food Guide’s award for Best Local Restaurant North West 2024.

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  • A selection of dishes available at Piccolino Italian restaurant, Bramhall
    Book Now Bramhall

    Piccolino Bramhall

    Restaurant - Italian

    With its large alfresco terrace with a fully retractable roof, Piccolino Bramhall is perfectly located in the heart of the village, making it a beautiful date spot or family meal favourite. The Italian menu makes the best use of the finest seasonal ingredients and the service is always spot on.

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  • Book Now Manchester City Centre

    Sicilian NQ

    Restaurant - Italian

    Located in the Northern Quarter, this friendly neighbourhood bistro and bar is the place to avanti if it’s a taste of traditional Sicily you fancy – from authentic street food snacks through to big plates of pasta to desserts and holiday memory gelato, eat in or take away.

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  • Book Now Altrincham

    Rigatoni’s Altrincham

    Restaurant - Italian

    Rigatoni’s is a bustling 25-seater Southern Italian pasta kitchen at the top of Shaws Road in Altrincham. Their rotating blackboard menu combines both their deep-rooted southern Italian heritage and their own creativity. They say that their simple pledge is to put their hearts and minds into every plate they serve.

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  • Steak at San Carlo - one of the Hot 50 Restaurants in Manchester for March.
    Deansgate

    San Carlo Manchester

    Restaurant - Italian

    San Carlo is Manchester’s most famous and, some say, best Italian restaurant. Run by the Distefano family, it’s said to have one of the largest turnovers in the UK. It’s also the place to be papped and you’ll sometimes see a bank of photographers outside to prove the point.

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  • A tavola new mills
    Greater Manchester

    A Tavola

    Restaurant - Italian

    A Tavola has an offbeat charm. Don’t be put off by the exterior. Sicilian delights await within.

    Inside, it is a bit of a squeeze. Intimate, as they say. It will be even more of a squeeze after you’ve stuffed yourself silly on authentic Sicilian food. And the food is the thing.

    From the look of the place, you might be expecting a few simple pizzas and not much more but you’d be wrong. Pizzas are most certainly on the menu but there are all sorts of dishes, from Sicilian street food to decadently alcoholic tiramisu. What links them is the quality of the ingredients, with many shipped over from respected Italian suppliers.

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  • Black Spot Pizza Restaurant Stockport
    Book Now Stockport

    Black Spot Pizza

    Restaurant - Italian

    There is no shortage of floppy, fold-it-up Neapolitan pizza in Manchester these days. Like the bee symbol, it has descended over the city in a swarm: there’s probably a slice creeping up behind you right now. But it’s not a bad thing – particularly if it means you’ve got a place like Black Spot Pizza in your neighbourhood. 

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  • Interior seating, Borrello restaurant, Sale
    Sale

    Borrello

    Restaurant - Italian

    Borrello is a slightly old-school Italian restaurant in Sale. You won’t unearth obscure regional delicacies or discover new ingredients but you will enjoy dishes like cannelloni filled with spinach and ricotta, mushroom risotto, spaghetti Bolognese, plenty of steaks and some pretty good pizzas.

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  • Cocktail served at Cuckoo, a bar in Prestwich, Manchester
    Prestwich

    Cuckoo

    Bars

    Like the interloping bird that gives it its name, Cuckoo was an odd-one-out when it first opened in Prestwich back in 2013. Since then a whole flock of likeminded, indie cafe-bars have landed in this suburb, but Cuckoo is still the favourite for many.

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  • Neapolitan-style wood fired pizza at Double Zero in Chorlton
    Chorlton

    Double Zero

    Restaurant - Italian

    An authentic Neapolitan-style pizzeria, Double Zero in Chorlton has been lauded as one of the best in the UK.

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  • pizza at Franco Manca manchester restaurant
    Manchester City Centre

    Franco Manca

    Restaurant - Italian

    Franco Manca started out as pioneers of sourdough Neapolitan pizza and natural Italian wine purveyors in Brixton Market in 1986. Now it’s all over London like a rash and has footholds outside the capital, including further north in Edinburgh and Leeds.

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  • Honest Crust Sourdough Mackie Mayor Pizza
    Book Now Manchester City Centre

    Honest Crust Sourdough Pizza Manchester

    Restaurant - Italian

    “On a mission to make really great sourdough pizza” since a pop-up in rainy Ramsbottom back in 2013, Honest Crust’s Northern Quarter outlet in the Mackie Mayor food hall is its second, sandwiched between Market House Alty and the more recent Picturedrome Macclesfield.

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  • A pizza served at La Casa, an Italian restaurant and bar in Astley, Greater Manchester
    Book Now Wigan

    La Casa

    Bars

    A new addition to Astley’s dining options is classy Italian restaurant and bar La Casa.

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  • Book Now Manchester City Centre

    L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele

    Restaurant - Italian

    Set in a Grade II-listed Charles Heathcote-designed Edwardian Baroque building, all that marble provides the perfect backdrop to a family-owned Italian restaurant and authentic pizzeria that combines traditional and modern, with an open kitchen and Pink Cocktail Bar.

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  • Produce from Lupo caffe Italiano
    Prestwich

    Lupo

    Restaurant - Italian

    Patiscerria and small-batch Italian hand-roasted coffee – that’s the name of the game at the award-winning Lupo Caffe Italiano.

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  • Noi Quattro Pizza Northern Quarter Manchester
    Manchester City Centre

    Noi Quattro

    Restaurant - Italian

    If it’s a taste of Italy you’re after, think NQ for proper pizza – Noi Quattro, to be precise. Meaning “us four”, Noi Quattro is owned and run by four friends from Turin who wanted to share their proud Italian heritage through the food they put on your plate.

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  • Spaghetti with asparagus sauce, crispy onions & stracchino cheese cream at The Pasta Factory
    Manchester City Centre

    The Pasta Factory

    Restaurant - Italian

    The group of friends behind The Pasta Factory’s story originally hail from Turin in the northern region of Piedmont, so this is the place for authentic Italian food full of flavour, with dishes created from scratch using only the best fresh ingredients in season.

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  • Vegan Pizza at Proove Pizza, Didsbury
    Didsbury

    Proove Pizza

    Restaurant - Italian

    Proove Pizza has proven itself to be a success which is fortunate because there’s no shortage of eateries slinging out Neapolitan pizzas from their disco ball of a wood-fired oven. It’s up there, flinging around its fior di latte and spreading its San Marzano tomatoes with the best of the authentic slow-proved pizza pack and even if it’s not numero uno, it’s definitely a contender.

    The interior is cool and sleek if a little lacking in character but the personality is all in the pizza. The bases are made with 00-grade Caputo flour and proved for 20 hours before being transformed into pure pizza pleasure.

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  • The terrace at Ramona Manchester
    Ancoats

    Ramona

    Bars

    Predominantly a pizzeria, Ramona incorporates a bakery, margarita bar, coffee counter, stage and Firehouse restaurant, and is found in the rollershuttered ex-E & A Auto Services garage depot on Swan Street, complete with a tree-lined forecourt, now the campfire beer garden.

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  • A cocktail and a bouquet of roses at Rosa, an Italian restaurant in Westhoughton, Bolton
    Bolton

    Rosa

    Restaurant - Italian

    Cicchetti, bar, grill. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Rosa’s food is inspired by Italy, and the menus are updated regularly to reflect the changing seasons in this smart-looking restaurant complete with sheltered garden – also perfect for soaking up some sunshine and a cocktail or two.

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  • Neapolitan-style pizzas being prepared at Rudy's Pizza in Ancoats, Manchester
    Manchester City Centre

    Rudy’s Pizza Manchester Ancoats

    Restaurant - Italian

    Listed amongst the world’s best pizzerias in international pizza guide, Where To Eat Pizza, Rudy’s Pizza has grown from a pop-up project into a full blown word-of-mouth phenomenon.

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  • Salvi's Italian Restaurant Northern Quarter
    Book Now Manchester City Centre

    Salvi’s Manchester Northern Quarter

    Restaurant - Italian

    Salvi’s NQ is the baby of what claims to be Manchester’s first independent Neapolitan restaurant, and if traditional, authentic southern Italian cuisine is on your mind, this is definitely a place to sniff out.

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  • Manchester City Centre

    Terrace NQ

    Bars

    Terrace NQ has really grown into its name over the years. Instead of just one terrace up on the roof, it now has four outside seating areas: there’s a gorgeous courtyard at the side, seats at the back on Edge Street, and more at the front on Thomas Street. Plus that original, leafy rooftop garden which has its own bar. This is as well as their light and airy interior which you get to through ‘the prettiest ginnel in Manchester’.  

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  • On the menu at Tre Amici, Bury
    Book Now Bury

    Tre Amici

    Restaurant - Italian

    Tre Amici is Bury’s own Neapolitan-style pizzeria, complete with 48-hour rested dough for that fold-it-up and shove-it-in experience.

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  • Fresh tomato and olives on a Neapolitan-style pizza at Tre Ciccio - an Italian restaurant in Altrincham
    Altrincham

    Tre Ciccio Altrincham

    Restaurant - Italian

    Translating as ‘three chubby friends’ (a self-effacing reference to owner Francesco Scafuri and a pair of his portly pals from back in Campania), Tre Ciccio Altrincham doesn’t look much from the outside, or even the inside, at first.

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  • Dine in at Tre Ciccio, Ramsbottom
    Book Now Ramsbottom

    Tre Ciccio Ramsbottom

    Restaurant - Italian

    Tre Ciccio’s Ramsbottom restaurant does much the same thing as Tre Ciccio in Altrincham – and that’s no bad thing. 

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  • Pappardelle al ragu’ bianco di agnello e crema ai funghi
    Salford

    Vero Moderno

    Restaurant - Italian

    Another fab addition to the clutch of good, independent Italian restaurants in the city is Vero Moderno. Situated on the regenerated Chapel Street just inside Salford, it joins Salvi’s, Pasta Factory, and Lupo on our list of ‘proper’ Italians which swerve the standard carbonara and bolognese in favour of something a little more considered.

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