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What makes a great Italian restaurant is, of course, the great food. There are other more obscure, sometimes unidentifiable components that all add up to the way you feel when you are there, and remain within your memories of the place for days, weeks, or even years after you have left. And years, in fact, after the restaurant itself is long gone. I write this in memory of a very small establishment, ( converted house, actually) called Casa Napoli, which was buried in the narrow streets of North Miami, over 25 years ago. I loved going to this quaint, dark, and overly-decorated three-room restaurant with it's hanging fish-nets full of plastic lobsters, fruit, wine bottles, tiny lights, and Italian deco covering every available wall space. My husband and I would go there before we were even married, to escape and to celebrate the many endings of hard working days, for the best stuffed shells or clams oreganata we have ever had in the 25 subsequent years of dining elsewhere, and my own attempts at Italian cooking. In fact, every time we have stuffed shells and red wine, in combination, we think immediately of Casa Napoli. We loved the atmosphere so much that we had our newly-introduced Jewish/Italian families there for our wedding dinner. At a long table of 30 people, the plastic lobsters hanging in nets above our heads, and as if we were tucked in along some newly discovered narrow street in Italy, we wined and dined our way to a life of remembering these good old days. All starting at Casa Napoli. And we have the pictures to prove it. And this is what makes a great Italian Restaurant. The combination of experiences, and of course, great food.

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