Once you dine at the Dahl & DiLuca Ristorante Italiano, you will be spoiled beyond your expectations. Lisa Dahl and her partner Andrea DiLuca have created the most exciting Italian cuisine with bold unforgettable flavors. These original dishes are their own interpretations with some surprising combinations. Every dish is a masterpiece!
Dahl & DiLuca have a wonderful selection of 15 appetizers! The charming Lisa Dahl explained, “It is always fun to have a lot of appetizers you can layer flavors and enjoy with your favorite wines. Our Affinato includes Radicchio stuffed with Croatian fig marmalade and Mozzarella cheese wrapped in Prosciutto Italian ham and topped with a reduced balsamic sauce. After it is grilled, the fig jam inside escapes as you cut it and the balsamic turns into almost gooey syrup that’s yummy and very ambrosial. This knocks people out of their socks! Affinato is really unique and people rave about it.”
Lisa calls herself ‘an appetizer nut’ because she fills-up on appetizers and orders a smaller meal or splits the entrée. Lisa offers unique appetizers like her Porcini Polpette homemade mushroom meatballs with a choice of white truffle cream sauce or traditional red sauce.
Their Portobello mushrooms are marinated, grilled and served as an appetizer or full entrée. Some vegetarians or vegans enjoy this as an entrée with roasted garlic potatoes and a string bean pepper combination. Lisa feels, “For them, it is like eating filet mignon.”
You would find many one-of-a-kind dishes. Their restaurant offers romantic share items like the Wine Lovers Antipasto for two, an assortment of imported Italian salami, Pecorino cheese, Prosciutto di Parma, olives, roasted peppers, and grilled Focaccia.
Lisa is proud of their cuisine, “Calamari is our number one order. I have heard people say a thousand times we have the best calamari in the world. My partner, Andrea really knows seafood because he was a fisherman as a young man in Rome. Andrea has so many secrets and knows the less you do, the better it is. We only cut Calamari by hand. The Calamari is crispy, light and delicious. Nothing else goes through the fryer. Then you have this amazing lemon Aioli which is spicy and tart at same time, just sensational.
The quality of our seafood is wonderful because we use Tuscan Extra Version organic Olive oil on everything.”
Lisa is ready for all tastes with their grill. “The finger-licking Colorado T-bone lamb chops are marinated with lemon and fresh herbs for one day. Our Black Angus Filet Mignon is served with a delicate white truffle and Gorgonzola sauce.
Our classically trained Pastry Chef interprets the desserts in her own wonderful style.” Lisa thinks desserts are to live for! She offers her version of the decadent way Tiramisu should be served.
Their Chocolate Trio was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. Dahl & DiLuca won several titles “Best Romantic Restaurant in Arizona”, “Among the Top Italian Restaurants in Arizona”, the “Wine Spectator Award of Excellence”, and were consistently voted “Best Italian Restaurant Market Surveys of America.
Dahl & DiLuca Ristorante Italiano combines all of the elements of her Roman partner and the unbelievably flavorful sauces Lisa creates. She wrote the book- “Elixir of Life” which discusses the base sauces and the ones that come out of it.
The way Lisa describes her cuisine, you can tell it is with emotion and love for her culinary creations.
I felt the Affinato was my favorite appetizer, the “hit” of the evening! Andrea’s Sea Bass is the perfect example of how great fish can taste! I loved the large pieces of crab in the sauce, a “Fisherman’s-Style” approach, which awakened the subtle flavors.
Using only the finest ingredients with some imports from Italy, Dahl & DiLuca Ristorante Italiano has been successful for 15 years and their second, Cucina Rustica, for 8 years in Sedona, Arizona. For information, call (928)-282-5219. Dahl & DiLuca Restorante Italiano: www.dahlanddiluca.com Cucina Rustica: www.cucinarustica.com
Sedona, Arizona
Sedona is only a 4 hours drive from Las Vegas and 2 hours from Phoenix.
Announcing: Roxanne and Jerry Foley’s Sedona estate was named a “Unique Luxury Home of the Rich and Famous”.