Best Chicken Parm in Utica, NY

Chicken parm in Utica, NY: our top picks

Utica is historically one of the most Italian cities in the country, and East Utica is where that history lives. The first Italian arrivals came from Basilicata, followed by larger waves from Apulia, Lazio, Calabria and Abruzzo. The local canon came out of their kitchens: tomato pie, a thick, focaccia-like square usually eaten at room temperature, which O’Scugnizzo’s has sold since 1914; Utica greens, escarole with garlic, hot cherry peppers, pecorino and breadcrumbs, a 1980s restaurant take on older southern Italian greens; and chicken riggies, rigatoni with peppers in a spicy tomato-cream sauce, whose inventor area chefs are still arguing over.

Parm here comes from the same red-sauce lineage. Ventura’s, on Lansing Street, was started in 1943 by Marie Ventura, who ran the kitchen, and her husband Rufus Sr., who worked the room; their son and grandchildren carried it on. Joe’s Restaurant, better known as Pellettieri Joe’s, sits at the corner of Jay Street and Pellettieri Avenue on the east side and has been going for roughly 115 years under only a few owners. Don’t ask for butter: there isn’t any, just oil and grated cheese, the old way. The Rose family, already co-owners, took it over in 2025.

Out in the suburbs, Georgio’s Village Cafe is a brick-walled restaurant and bar on Genesee Street in the village of New Hartford, with a patio for warm nights and Utica greens on the menu alongside the parms. Tony and Chris Lupino ran Bella Cucina on Commercial Drive in New Hartford for more than 20 years, closed it in 2022, and reopened in a converted ice cream stand on Westmoreland Road in Clark Mills, a short drive west. Tony still cooks, and his niece Lilly Placito does the baking and desserts.

1. Bella Cucina (Clark Mills) — Parm Score 81. Chicken parm comes up in 1 of the recent Google reviews we sampled, and the tone is positive. It is on the menu, too. 4.7 on Google across 284 reviews.
2. Ventura's (Utica) — Parm Score 69. Chicken parm is on the restaurant’s own menu (checked November 2026). 4.6 on Google across 505 reviews.
3. Georgio's Village Cafe (New Hartford) — Parm Score 60. No chicken parm mentions in the reviews we sampled yet, so it ranks on overall quality. 4.6 on Google across 711 reviews.

We ranked 12 restaurants within 10 miles of Utica, NY. 2 of them have the parm confirmed, by reviewers or on their own menu, and Parm Scores run from 53 to 81. Confirmed places rank first; the rest are well-reviewed Italian spots where the parm is not yet confirmed, and pizzerias and steakhouses need a mention to appear at all. How Parm Score works.

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