2 Best Restaurants in Elmira, The Finger Lakes

A giant wreath with a shamrock beckons from a hill, making this family-owned restaurant, in operation since 1933, hard to miss. The menu has mostly seafood, steak, and chops: filet mignon, scallops in cheese-and-cream sauce, and Irish surf and turf (with lamb chop and langostinos). Open-air dining is an option on the deck and terrace.

Worth the 6-mi drive north of town, family-owned and -operated Tanino's, as it's called, serves more-authentic Italian than is usually found in this area: meals start with bread and olive oil rather than bread and pats of butter, and the wine list is one of the region's lengthiest. Ignore the strip-mall exterior and head into the casual, comfortable dining room with a fireplace. The large menu includes about a dozen choices each of pasta (cheese ravioli, penne alla vodka), seafood, poultry, veal, and beef entrées, plus popular brick-oven pizzas.