Italians—and their cuisines—have been in San Francisco since the 1880s, when Ligurians settled in North Beach; they saved the neighborhood during the 1906 earthquake and fire by uncorking their wine barrels and swaddling the houses with blankets soaked in vino rosso. North Beach has since turned into a warren of Italian restaurants of widely varying quality. (Tourist: Do not venture unguided, and beware Michelangelo murals.) While there have always been standouts from the red-sauce crowd, over the years the cuisine became less authentically Italian and more what people expect from any city’s Little Italy, which has more to do with New Jersey than Naples. Over the past few years, though, the city has undergone a sort of Italian renaissance, with a host of new restaurants returning to the roots of regional Italian cooking, and to the values of preparing simple food with great, seasonal, local ingredients. Here, in alphabetical order, are our ten favorites.