I’ve been thinking about it for years, and I’ve been wrong for years. That is, each time I go to dinner at Il Nido, a New York City landmark northern Italian restaurant on East 53rd Street, I wonder if it will still be there the next time I come back. The reason: Il Nido (which means the nest in Italian) is an anomaly on the city’s Italian dining scene, perhaps like the dinosaur extinct, an old-world restaurant that caters to a civilized, well-mannered, predominantly over-50 crowd, versus the younger, rowdy, and more boisterous set that is synonymous with Big Apple’s fastest-growing Italian eateries.

Former New York Knickerbockers star Patrick Ewing probably would disagree with the dinosaur label. At dinner one evening at Il Nido, he told a companion he thought the restaurant would last forever because he felt it was so good.

Treasury Secretary John Snow would likely echo such thinking. A recent luncheon visitor, he raved about the restaurant to Adi Giovannetti, the 65-year-old Italian-born owner of Il Nido, which has been doing business from its same East Side location since it opened in 1979. All told, the restaurant, whose average check per person, including drinks, averages about $75, seats 80.

But praise from these luminaries, as well as from such political steadies as Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, and Mayors Giuliani and Koch, doesn’t necessarily add up to booming sales, given the intensely competitive nature of Italian dining.

By some estimates, about 2,500 Italian restaurants – ranging from pizza joints to fine dining at the likes of such noteworthy eateries as Primavera and Il Mulino – dot the New York City landscape.

Clearly, the fight for survival among the city’s Italian restaurants has never been greater. In Manhattan, for example, it’s not uncommon for five or six Italian eateries to be operating within a couple of blocks of each other. In Il Nido’s case, there are five rivals within a two-block radius. What’s more, Italian restaurants, the city’s second-largest ethnic dining category after Asian eateries, continue to swell in number.

Mr. Giovannetti admits he’s not excited about the current tempo of business despite $2.5 million a year in annual revenues. “It’s tough to compete,” he said. “We have a union, which means higher salaries and higher benefits, and many Italian restaurants are non-union.”

Mr. Giovannetti, who describes business as fair and observes it really has never come back since September 11, 2001, believes Il Nido’s growth and survival will largely hinge on offering more of the same – fine food and nonstop service, which includes the tableside preparation of all dishes. Under the direction of head captain Milio Bagnoli, who has been with restaurant since 1989, few Italian dining establishments provide the kind of attentive service, some steady customers say, that Il Nido does. Contributing to that is a staff of 32, including Mr. Giovannetti and the official greeter, his wife, Rosanna. Most staff members have been with restaurant more than 20 years, making it practically a family affair.

Mr. Giovannetti thinks Il Nido boasts another significant asset, a true understanding of what authentic Italian cooking is all about, because he was born in Italy (in the city of Lucca, which is near Florence). In contrast, he observes, many owners of Italian restaurants – in fact, an increasing number of them – are non-Italians.

Meanwhile, Mr. Giovannetti will be pleased to hear the Il Nido gets a rave review from one of its classiest rivals, Primavera owner Nicola Civetta, who describes it as “a very fine restaurant.”