🇮🇹 Italian

Four-ingredient pasta — pepper bloomed in oil, cheese worked in slowly to avoid clumps.

Coconut cream set with gelatin, optionally infused with saffron and cardamom.

Slow-cooked beef ragu and a peppercorn-infused bechamel, built from a well-worn cookbook recipe.

Anchovy, olives and capers in a quick San Marzano tomato sauce.

Toasted sourdough tossed with salted, marinated tomatoes and torn basil.

Gorgonzola melted into mascarpone for a quick, rich blue-cheese pasta sauce.

Fresh basil pesto blended to order, loosened with a splash of pasta water.

Whole roasted garlic cloves and crisped prosciutto in a reduced cream sauce.

Italian sausage and mushroom soup baked together with rotini and melted fontina.

Oven-baked meatballs in a tomato sauce simmered over an hour for depth.

Classic tiramisu with separated eggs and a brandy-and-rum-spiked espresso soak.

Whipped egg-yolk-and-mascarpone cream over espresso-dipped ladyfingers, the NYT version.