You would think that a place like the Garden State would easily dominate the list of best Italian restaurants in America, and if you thought that, you'd be wrong. And if you thought at least one local restaurant would be on the list, you'd be wrong again. But at least one New Jersey restaurant made the list. Yep, just one.

Photo by Ben Lei on Unsplash
Photo by Ben Lei on Unsplash
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And if you want to try the Garden State Italian restaurant that made the list, you're going to have to pack the family in the car, fill the gas tank and get ready for a bit of a ride. We'll get to that in a second.

First, we want to tell you how the website The Daily Meal decided which Italian restaurants across the nation made the list and which didn't. I promise you by the time we're done you'll be able to name a dozen local eateries that should ave made the list.

Daily Meal used a panel of bloggers, food critics and their own lists of the best casual restaurants in America and best restaurants in America, as well as best pasta dishes, best pizza and other things, to come up with their list.

So, you can forget about all those great Italian restaurants in your neighborhood, and all of South Jersey for that matter, because the only New Jersey Italian restaurant to make the list is a Jersey City place called Razza and it came in at #21 on The Daily Meal list.

I'm not going to lie. Razza looks great and sounds like an awesome road trip. And we thank them for getting New Jersey at least some representation on this list, but we hope next time, the national publications can dig deeper, and find many more Garden State Italian restaurants who deserve to be on the list, and get them on there!

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