Best Italian Deli

There's no doubt that Lucca is the real deal: sawdust on the floors; weekly specials handwritten on butcher paper; cramped aisles stocked to the gills with imported pastas, tomato paste, biscotti, and bottles of fine Italian red wine. But the front counter is where the action happens. There, chatty clerks dispense fresh packages of pasta, tubs of pesto and tomato sauce, chunks of cheese from the deli's expansive selection (don't leave without the house-imported double cream brie), and even the occasional cooking tip. Boxes of the bite-size ravioli, plentiful enough for two, come frozen or fresh (at peak customer hours, they might be prepared every hour). Lucca, which has been around for 69 years, is as Old World as you can get in modern-day San Francisco.