Mary Rose Del Pietro works the dining room at the Richmond Heights restaurant that bears her last name like a queen holding court, breezing past table after table, sometimes with just a wink and a smile, other times with a casual, "How are you enjoying the ravioli?" If she gives you that question, keep in mind that she is not asking for a response. The raven-haired matriarch has been doing this for decades, and there is nothing you could tell her that she doesn't already know.

Maybe she would have needed your feedback back in 1976, the year she and husband Michael Del Pietro Sr. opened the original Del Pietro's on Hampton Avenue. Then again, maybe not: They seem to have figured everything out just fine on their own, reigning over one of the city's dining mainstays for more than three decades by serving up unapologetically American-style Italian comfort dishes like veal parmigiana, chicken piccata and sweet Italian-dressed salads.