According to the newspaper, the list was compiled using feedback from critics, reporters, and editors around the country, with the aim of showcasing the 50 most vibrant and delicious restaurants post-pandemic. Tratto is the only Arizona restaurant to make the 2021 list.
"They're not ranked, but together they reflect the rich mosaic of American dining," says Times food desk contributor Brett Anderson.
The five-star restaurant is the brainchild of Chris Bianco, a James Beard award-winning chef who is also a master pizzaiolo. He currently operates two Pizzeria Bianco locations — 623 East Adams Street and 4743 North 20th Street — and Pane Bianco, 4404 North Central Avenue.
Anderson cites Bianco's use of local flavors as one of the contributing factors to making it on the list.
"[Tratto's] kitchen still proves that Arizona wheat makes pasta as exemplary as it does crust and bread and that an Italian menu can be guided by seasonal regional ingredients, even in a desert city where walking to your car often feels like passing through a pizza oven," Anderson says.
Tratto opened in 2016 in a 50-seat, 1,100-square-foot strip mall on East Camelback Road. It moved into its present digs — a rustic, 4,000-square-foot, 104-year-old building on Van Buren Street, just east of 15th Street — in 2020.