Perche

It would be a huge mistake to think that the food is automatically good in Italy, and that you'll be getting Michelin star type quality just by going to a local restaurant.

As PWMTrav said, there has been a lot of discussion about how to eat in Italy in this forum. Recommendations for apps have been posted.

You are going to be visiting the tourist areas. What restaurateur has an incentive to serve high quality, carefully cooked ingredients to people they will never see again? In tourist areas you can ask your cousin to cook in a restaurant, or someone with no experience, training or talent, because no matter how bad the food is, it will have a line of tourists waiting outside because they are located near the tourist sites. The "chef" may be no more qualified than the cook at Waffle House.

You can eat amazing food near the tourist sites, but only if you know where to go. Armando del Pantheon is right down a side street from the Pantheon. One of the best restaurants in Rome. Most of the other restaurants around the Pantheon are serving factory made frozen food cooked to order in a microwave oven, and the tourists who eat it come back raving that it was the best lasagna, pizza or whatever, that they have ever eaten. Much of the food served up to tourists will be Olive Garden, or worse. They pay double or triple the price for it, and think it's great because they are captivated by the fact that they are eating in Italy.

You have a better chance going away from the tourist areas, and into the places where the locals are. But that still doesn't mean you are going to be in the same universe as a Michelin star restaurant. Think about your typical restaurant in San Francisco, away from the tourist area of Fisherman's Wharf, the kind of place where the San Franciscans live, and where no tourists go. Just because you go into any old restaurant in Pacific Heights or in the Mission District where the people live doesn't that mean it's a world class, memorable meal, even though there are only locals there, and no tourists. It could be terrible. The guy behind the stove could be a moonlighting cab driver (no offense to cab drivers).

You might get overcooked, undercooked, rubbery, moldy food in a local restaurant in San Francisco, and you are just as likely or more to get it in Rome. You are not guaranteed to eat great food just because it's where the locals eat at their neighborhood diner.

If you look you will find amazing, memorable food that justifies Italy's ranking as having perhaps the best food. It's not an automatic that you can just go into any restaurant in Italy and the food will be great.

If you do some homework and actually eat in a good italian restaurant, it makes it hard to eat anywhere else. Do your homework and as PWMTrav said, don't assume that just because you are in Italy you don't need to pay attention to which restaurant you go to. If you eat in a tourist area you have perhaps five times the chance of striking out than if you ate in the states. If you just go out and eat somewhere just because, "that's where the locals eat," you'll be better off than if you went to a restaurant in a touristy area, but it will only make it about as equivalent as going to any random local place in San Francisco.

If you want to experience great Italian food, and it seems as if you do, you must do your homework, as you will only have a few opportunities during your trip. Don't waste them in a random tourist area, or believing that just because is away from the historic center and it is in Monti, Prati, Testaccio, that it's automatically any better than your neighborhood diner in San Francisco.