With Cassie Shortino as chef and Blaise Faber as beverage director and GM, Chris Bianco's trattoria remains the best Italian restaurant in town by a wide margin. You can count Tratto's superiority in so many ways: drinks, including obscure amari, cocktails made with house-steeped liqueurs, and hard-to-find deeply regional wine vintages from the boot. Pasta, from wheaty tagliatelle shaped from freshly ground grains to a simple off-menu cacio e pepe that is hands-down the best pasta in town. Or even a simple starter: the bread, olive oil, and olive plate that opens your meal is nirvana, a harbinger of all the nirvana to come. And yet, there are still so many other facets to this jewel of a restaurant. Eating here is an escape to a better world. (Note: The address for Tratto will change soon; it's moving to what is currently the Pane Bianco space at 1505 East Van Buren Street later this autumn.)