12 Upstate New York Italian Restaurants Serving Epic Meatballs

We feel that Mighty Meatball should join the ranks of other iconic foods and have an entire month of tasty celebrations dedicated to it. So we call March Meatball Month around here.

Meatballs and this writer go way back. Way, way back. My parents owned a little Italian restaurant in a small town in Delaware County (Upstate New York). As a kid, I watched as my Mom would handroll meatballs all day long, hundreds of them, maybe even thousands of them. Her hands ended up so sticky from rolling them that many times she couldn't even spread her fingers open.

Then they were popped into our two-rack oven and cooked to perfection. Then dunked into the massive stainless steel vat of homemade sauce that sat on the 4-burner oven. This was in the 1950s and early 1960s. Isn't it funny that all these years later I can still enjoy the memory of watching these delightful little meatballs being made by my now long-gone Mom.

And a love affair with meatballs began for me.

Today, if a meatball is on the menu of an Italian restaurant I am dining at (and usually they are) I will order a side of them. Even if I order fish or a steak as my main meal. Italian restaurants mean meatballs to me. Simple.

To help celebrate Meatball March here are a dozen places in Upstate New York that serve epic meatballs. Except one. You will see why I say that when you come to it. It is the one in Binghamton. Funny.

Mangia!

"Mangia!" These 12 Upstate New York Restaurants Want to Help You Celebrate National Meatball Month

March 1 is National Meatball Day, but really, who could celebrate such a delightful delicacy as a meatball in just one day? So we celebrate our own, self-declared Meatball Month in March. Here are a dozen fantastic Italian restaurants that serve hall-of-fame meatballs!

By the Glass, You Cannot Go Wrong at These 13 Upstate New York Wine Bars

Wine bars are spreading across Upstate New York rapidly. Not necessarily bars in the traditionally sense, or corner saloons, or cocktail lounges, but wine bars which focus mainly on the many varieties of wines from around the world.

Of course Upstate is no slouch when it comes to wine, with the Finger Lakes wineries now grabbing many of the headlines at wine expos and competitions around the country. But local wine producers, even the very small ones, are starting to nudge into the pack of award-winning vinos from coast to coast

Here is a list of 13 great wine bars. They all serve food and many of them have the word "restaurant" in their name, but as you will see, the wine is the superstar at all of these fine Upstate New York places.

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