Catania

Catania sits on the third floor of a shopping center, which sounds like a punchline until you're on the terrace with an ocean breeze and a skyline of palm trees, plate of pizza in hand. The setting does real work here, but the kitchen backs it up. A wood-fired oven named Beatrice turns out thin-crust pies with real char and blister, and the Sicilian Pistachio, loaded with burrata, mortadella, and pesto, is the kind of dish that justifies the trip up the elevator on its own.

The menu knows its own strengths better in some places than others. The meatballs get the reputation, but the crispy octopus, charred in that same oven and paired with merguez and capers, is the sharper order, briny and a little aggressive in a way the room's polish doesn't prepare you for. The duck sugo orecchiette rounds things out with the kind of comfort a terrace dinner wants.

Michelin has selected Catania two years running. That's confirmation, not the case. The case is a wood oven doing serious work and a view that, for once, isn't wasted on mediocre food.