City guide · California
San Diego
Italian food guide
Every San Diego restaurant we've reviewed and every list we're building, in one place. Each review combines genuine diner reviews with our own visit, and shows exactly how its score was reached.
Restaurant reviews
Updated 2026-10-05- 95 / 100
Miramar, near La Jolla, UTC & Scripps Ranch · $10–20
Pastalini
A build-your-own pasta and pizza counter in a Miramar Road strip mall. Pick a pasta, sauce and toppings, have it sautéed or baked, and it's out fast at weekday-lunch prices.
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- 79 / 100
Downtown · $30–90
Seneca Trattoria
A rooftop Roman-style trattoria on the 19th floor of the InterContinental, with bay views, wood-fired cooking and Neapolitan-style pizza. It opened in July 2021.
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Coming next
The San Diego lists
Each list publishes once every restaurant on it has been scored the same way.
- Best Italian Restaurants in San DiegoIn progress
- Best Pizza in San DiegoIn progress
- Best Fresh Pasta in San DiegoIn progress
- Best Trattorias in San DiegoIn progress
- Best Gelato in San DiegoIn progress
Neighborhoods we cover
- Little Italy
- The city's historic Italian neighborhood just north of downtown, built by Italian fishing families and still home to many of San Diego's best-known Italian restaurants.
- Downtown & Gaslamp Quarter
- Downtown dining rooms and hotel rooftops along the bay.
- North Park & Hillcrest
- Walkable neighborhood dining streets.
- La Jolla
- Coastal dining in the village and along the shore.
- Miramar & Sorrento Valley
- Business-park lunch spots and catering kitchens.
- Pacific Beach
- Casual beach-neighborhood dining.
- Coastal North County
- Encinitas, Carlsbad and Del Mar, covered as we expand north.
- Coronado
- Island dining across the bay.
How we review San Diego
Every review starts with what real diners say: genuine public reviews, weighted by how many people left them and how recent they are, with spam and incentivized reviews filtered out. Where a restaurant is rated on more than one platform, we show each source and the date we checked it.
Then we look at the kitchen (what's made in-house, how regional the cooking is, the ingredients) and add notes and photos from our own visit. Nobody can pay to be reviewed or ranked.