'Better than any Italian restaurant in NYC': This newcomer in Rockland County is your next dining destination

The diner sitting at the table next to mine at Lanni's Cuccina Verace Italiana, a fine-dine Italian restaurant in Sparkill, New York, was ecstatic.

"I've eaten at the best Italian restaurants in New York City and this is better than any of them," he said.

Herb Karlitz, a Demarest resident and the man with whom I was dining, was happy too. "My new favorite local spot," declared Karlitz, CEO and president of Karlitz & Co., a culinary marketing and events business that has been involved in more than 10,000 chef events (so, yes, he too has eaten at the best restaurants in NYC and beyond). "Authentic and delicious."

Mary Cumella, a Culinary Institute of America grad and co-owner of Gioia Mia, a terrific new Italian restaurant in Montclair (formerly Fascino), is a big fan too. As is Gioia Mia's chef, Logan Ramirez. "One of the best Italian restaurants we've been to in a long time," Cumella said.

And me? What do I, the food editor of The Record/northjersey.com, who has spent lots of hours and way too many dollars eating at great restaurants all around the world, have to say about Lanni's, an intimate, dinner-only spot headed by Naples-born Vittorio Lanni?

Three words: Make a reservation.

Hurry, too. Apparently some diners have already reserved certain tables for certain nights for a long time — a la Rao's, the famous East Harlem restaurant where tables are booked by regulars on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Lanni's diners reserved tables the old-fashion way — by calling the restaurant and talking to a human. The restaurant did not contract with any digital reservation services, like Resy or OpenTable.

Of course there are really good Italian restaurants in North Jersey — Viaggio in Wayne, Osteria Crescendo in Westwood, Gioia Mia in Montclair, Verana in Norwood and Fiorentini in Rutherford among them — but, if you're a true food lover, you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not driving a few extra miles to dine at Lanni's. After you do, you might just want to reserve a table ... for life.

The place is small — 40 seats; it used to be a pre-school before Lanni and his wife, Kimberly Auth Lanni, transformed it into an intimate, somewhat cramped, definitely high-end gem sporting large-scale floral wallpaper, mauve velour banquettes, bright brass door handles, crisp white tablecloths and classy Italian dishware and stemware.

And the food is, with few exceptions, darn terrific.

Take the grilled octopus, its arm so big I suspected it pumped iron in some ocean gym. That humongous limb was fork tender, its skin crisp, and the simple room-temperature potato- cherry-tomato-and-string-bean salad that it perched on a nice, light accompaniment.

Or take the rabbit. The farm-raised bunny hails from Ischia, an Italian island famous for its wild rabbits. And, yes, it tasted like chicken, only better — meatier, earthier, more pungent. Braised for three hours and cooked in a stew of tomatoes, black olives, celery and fennel, it was so tender, a knife was superfluous.

Like the rabbit, 90 percent of the ingredients are imported from Italy. Lanni's, unlike so many restaurants nowadays, does not chant the now-tiresome farm-to-table mantra. Its mantra: quality ingredients.

Talking about quality: Lanni's uses high-end, sun-dried, imported-from-Italy Benedetto pasta for its noodle dishes. Lanni doesn't pretend that his pasta is homemade (only two on the menu are: linguine and pappardelle). Lanni told me that he actually prefers dry pasta. "In Italy, we don't eat fresh pasta," he said.

I might eschew fresh pasta too, now that I've tasted Lanni's rigatoni Amatriciana made with dry (in this case, sun-dried) pasta. Cooked al dente, the rigatoni were laced in a zesty, thick tomato sauce flavored with rich and salty guanciale. As for onions, an ingredient you'd often find in this classic dish, forgetaboutit. Ditto garlic.

"In Italy, we barely use garlic," Lanni said. "It hides flavors. We don't eat a lot of onions either. And we don't have lots of wine in oak."

Lanni's does, however, have lots of wine, 500 bottles in fact, all Italian, few oaked. "We try to educate what the true grape varietal should taste like without masking the grape in oak," Lanni said.

He tries to do the same with the food — offering dishes that you may not find elsewhere. Like, vitello tonnato, a Piedmontese dish of cold, sliced veal covered with a mayonnaise-like sauce flavored with tuna. I applaud the educational effort; the dish, however, was a disappointment. The veal, cut razor thin, was tough, swimming in a pool of oil, with very little tuna sauce. But Karlitz assured me that it was terrific the previous time he had it.

It was our only dud.

Desserts? Go for the wonderful cheesecake, or for the gigantic tiramisu that supposedly feeds two but, more likely, three or four sweet tooths. Delicate and creamy, it beautifully melded rich mascarpone cheese, fluffy whipped cream, potent espresso and dark-flavored coffee liqueur over soft, soaked ladyfingers. Delicious.

So delicious that I'm wondering if I should secure a table at Lanni's for the rest of this year. Meet me there every Wednesday, say, around 7 p.m.?

Lanni's Cucina Verace Italiana

Go: 645 Main St., Sparkill, 845-470-2505, lanniscucina.com

Hours: 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., Monday to Saturday; 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday

Good for:  Special occasions and date night

Recommended dishes: Polipo (octopus), Rigatoni Alla Matriciana, Coniglio (rabbit), Tiramisu

Drinks: Expansive Italian wine list plus crated cocktails

Reservations:  Make a reservation!

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Sparkill restaurants: Lanni's Cucina Verace Italiana fine dine