Vigilucci's Trattoria

On our list of the best special-occasion restaurants in San Diego.

Roberto Vigilucci, who grew up in a family of cooks in Milan, opened this trattoria in downtown Encinitas in 1994 before moving it to its current Leucadia storefront in 2004. The kitchen hand-cuts its own pasta, including pappardelle with wild mushrooms and scallops and ravioli filled with butternut squash, and turns out pizzas from a Florentine wood-burning brick oven. Dogs are welcome on the patio, and the family runs two more Vigilucci's restaurants in Carlsbad.