Dessert Guide for your Favorite NYC Italian Restaurant

After your delicious meal at the best Italian restaurant in New York, Re Sette, you flip to the back page of the menu for search for a sweet treat to finish your meal the right way. What you find is a list of dessert names, mostly ending in vowels, and you aren’t sure what is what. The following is a guide to what some of the most popular Italian desserts. You know it is important to make informed decisions, especially when it comes to dessert at a top Italian restaurant NYC.

Cannoli- “Leave the gun; take the cannoli.” If you are a fan of the movie The Godfather, you recognize that memorable quote about this Sicilian pastry. The name comes from the Sicilian word meaning “little tube,” which speaks directly to its shape. This popular pastry is a tube of fried dough filled with some type of sweet filling that almost always has ricotta in it. The size can range from finger to fist. Many pastry chefs choose to embellish a bit, adding cherries, pistachios, or chocolate chips.

Gelato- This is the Italian version of ice cream, made with milk, sugar, and cream. Although, in America, there are a lot of different takes on what the dessert exactly is. You could find everything for standard ice cream to frozen ice being called Gelato. But if you eat at an authentic Manhattan Italian Restaurant like Re Sette, you can be sure you will be getting the real thing.

Tiramisu- In Italian, this dessert name literally means pick me up. There are many layers in a Tiramisu and many yummy flavors like coffee, mascarpone cheese, cocoa, and liquor. You can always spot a Tiramisu because of the distinctive circle of ladyfingers which are placed along the edge of the dessert.

Panna cotta- This cooked cream dessert is created by mixing cream, sugar, milk, and gelatin, simmering the mixture. It will set as it is cooled. And here is a fun fact, before using gelatin, the recipe called for boiled fish bones! This sweet delicacy can be adapted to anyone’s taste by adding chocolate, fruit, caramel, or whatever will hit the spot.

Spumone- Coming from the Italian word for “foam,” this frozen dessert is another take on ice cream. When you dig in, you will find different layers of flavored ice cream, Pistachio, cherry, vanilla, and chocolate. In between the ice cream, you will find a fruit and nut layer.

Zeppole- Is a light and fluffy deep-fried dough ball, although you will find them in different shapes. They are usually covered in sugar and can be filled or dipped into a variety of toppings like custard, pastry cream, honey, or chocolate.

The next time you are settling into the dessert round at Re Sette, the best Italian restaurant in Manhattan, use this guide to satisfy your sweet tooth. And then come back to try them all!