Dine on Italian chicken, pasta, paninis, authentic Neapolitan pizza and sip a glass of limoncello, all in Atlanta’s Little Italy.
Atlanta may not have several distinct ethnic neighborhoods, but it does have this section of town just west of Midtown that the owner called Little Italy for his Italian restaurants clustered there.
Giovanni Di Palma, a native of Naples, opened Antico Pizza in 2009 in an old building on Atlanta’s Westside. It quickly became a favorite for A-listers filming in town.
Here are just a few of the celebrities who have been seen there: Clink Eastwood, Will Ferrell, Chris Rock, Drew Barrymore, Paul Rudd, Conan O’Brien and Steve Carell.
Antico was followed by Gio’s Chicken, Bar Amalfi (open seasonally) and Caffe Antico, all housed within a few feet of each other.
Gio’s is one of my go-to places and I always order the same thing – the lemon chicken. It’s so moist and the sauce is so scrumptious I could practically drink it. While we sometime eat in, angling for a spot to set at the communal red-checked tableclothed tables, we usually take it home to eat it. And here are my tips for take out. Ask them to package the potatoes separately. They come in the same container as the chicken, which makes them soggy.
The salad that comes with the entrees is very simple – lettuce and Parmesan cheese. But it’s real cheese and the vinaigrette dressing is the perfect amount of tangy for me.
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– Jan Schroder, Editor in chief