Tag: Tiramisu

AlbuquerqueItalianNew MexicoPizzaRating: Excellent

Luigi’s Ristorante & Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno7:40 AM

Luigi’s is the eponymous brainchild of Luigi Napolitano whose very last name translates to citizen of Naples, the city from which his mother Tina emigrated more than four decades ago. Tina is the bread-baking, pasta-making dynamo in the kitchen and is also responsible for many of the restaurant’s homey touches.  Tina painstakingly hand-sewed the delicate lace covering over each lamp (below) as well as the curtains over each booth.  Other homey touches include viney plants hanging from pillars throughout the restaurant and a framed picture of the Mona Lisa hanging above the buffet. Tina, a spry octogenarian, is one of the sweetest, kindest restaurateurs you could ever hope to meet.  She’s cut down the hours she works and sometimes the volume of guests prevents her from leaving the kitchen to meet them, but if she makes her way to your table, you’re in for a treat.  Tina is not only the restaurant’s best ambassador, she’s a wonderful ambassador for her homeland,  She doesn’t return to Naples as often as she’d like, but her fondest wish is that everyone has the opportunity to visit Lo Stivale.  She escorted me to a map on the wall and pointed out Naples then regaled…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyItalianPizzaRating: Very Good

Il Vicino – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:54 AM

Undoubtedly the most oft-quoted line on Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” is “good fences make good neighbors.” Frost, a four-time Pulitzer Prize award winning American poet certainly didn’t have Il Vicino (“the neighbor”) in mind when he penned his prose. Fortunately fences are no obstacle to patrons of this popular contemporary Italian trattoria. A well-regarded neighborhood eatery with three Albuquerque locations, Il Vicino is probably best known for its wood-oven pizza and award-winning brewery with popular micro-brewed ales but it offers much more than that. Known in some circles for prized beers, Il Vicino has a private wine label designed to complement its menu. Victuals include salads, panini and piadine-style sandwiches and baked lasagna, too. Il Vicino has long been a fixture in Albuquerque’s Nob Hill area (3403 Central Avenue, S.E.) with a second location in the far Northeast Heights (11225 Montgomery Boulevard, N.E.). In November, 2009, a third Il Vicino was launched in the burgeoning Northwest side (10701 Coors Blvd, N.W.). You’re never too far away from Il Vicino.  Every year, Pizza Monthly, a highly respected trade publication, mails out surveys to independent pizzerias across the nation. Using their responses, they compile a “Hot 100 list” — a ranking…

ArizonaDog FriendlyItalianPizzaRating: OutstandingUnited States

Guido’s Chicago Meat & Deli – Scottsdale, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

For years now, my Kim and I have largely eschewed American television, especially its sophomoric, lowbrow and “meant for voyeurs” reality shows.  We’ve been increasingly gravitating to an almost exclusive viewership of British television which we’ve found to be meant for grown-ups rather than children.  British television programs offer a sophistication direly absent in American programming.  British programs tend to be more substantive, refined and of much higher quality than their American counterparts.  That assessment applies to mysteries, comedies, dramas and even commercials. The final nail in the coffin for American television were two absolutely unwatchable reality shows:  The Kardashians and Jersey Shore.  Both showcase obnoxious, self-aggrandizing and vacuous characters with no redeeming characteristics.  The Jersey Show, for example, made celebrities of four loud, foul-mouthed, hypersexual Italian Americans who self-style as “guidos” and “guidettes.”  Never mind that “guido” (slang for a working-class urban Italian-American) is widely perceived by Italian-Americans as a pejorative word, like “spic” or “wop.” It’s a very unflattering stereotype. Lest you think we lowered ourselves to watch such detritus, we caught a promotion for the series which bragged about gathering the “hottest, tannest, craziest guidos” and assembling them at a beach resort where all would be laid…

ArizonaDiners Drive-Ins and DivesItalianPizzaRating: OutstandingUnited States

FAT OLIVES – Flagstaff, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Several years and a couple of tons ago, my friend “Macho” Mike Moretti and I were the type of trenchermen that all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants feared so much they established strict time limits.  When a German restaurant on San Mateo offered a free dessert to any diner who could finish a gargantuan combination plate, we easily surmounted the challenge and asked for seconds.  Perhaps our most impressive culinary conquest transpired when Pizza Inn offered a “order one pizza, get the next size free” deal.  We ordered an extra large pizza and a large pizza then polished them off.  That was the last time I ever finished at least an entire pizza (about ten acres of pie) by myself.  That is, the last time until my Kim and I paid an inaugural visit to Fat Olives in Flagstaff, Arizona. No ordinary pizza will you find at Fat Olives.  The pizza for which I scaled the heights of gluttony placed third in the International Pizza Expo in 2014.  That event hosts the largest assembly of pizzaiolo in the world.  Its prestigious pizza-making competition in North America, if not the world.  Third place places Fat Olives in rarefied air.  Furthermore, Fat Olives is a…

AmericanBreakfastBreakfast BurritosDog FriendlyNew MexicoPizzaRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Trail Rider – Cedar Crest, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

During the prehistoric and dark ages when I went to school, we were taught a song called “The Bear Went Over The Mountain.”  When that wandering ursus got to the other side of the mountain, all he could see was the other side of the mountain.  Ostensibly, this song recalls a bear’s fruitless journey to see what lies beyond.  It symbolizes the endless nature of life’s constant undertakings, the continuous, sometimes futile, effort in life to find something beyond the current experience.  Now, that’s the allegorical meaning of the song.  In literal terms, a bear (or anyone of us) going over the Sandia Mountains won’t see the same sights or have the same experiences we have in the Albuquerque side of the mountain. I joked with Joe, the extraordinary baker at Trail Rider, that most of the people who live on the morning side of the mountain (eastern slope) are old hippies.  “Except for us,” he clarified, noting my recent Opie Taylor haircut and his own closely shorn coiffure.  Having grown up within easy walking distance of “The Hog Farm,” a hippie commune in Llano, New Mexico, I know a lot of old hippies.  It’s always amused me how many…

FarmingtonItalianNew MexicoRating: N/R (Not Rated)

Joe’s Italian Restaurant – Farmington, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Is it disingenuous for restaurants to label themselves with titles and sobriquets they don’t quite (or at least not quite honestly) live up to?  (Politicians do it all the time, so why not restaurants?) Is it pretentious and haughty to use labels with which English-speaking diners might be impressed even though we don’t know what they mean?  Is it instead great marketing, a clever way to increase the number of guests?   It’s something I actually ponder when visiting Italian restaurants.  For example, when our friend Greg Hamilton introduced us to “Joe’s Restaurant” in Farmington, I momentarily wondered if it could possibly be good considering its humble name. Far too many Italian restaurants label themselves as trattorias, osterias and tavolas.  Not knowing what those labels mean, many of us are impressed, believing those terms must signify much more than an “ordinary” restaurant.  In truth, a trattoria is just a type of informal Italian restaurant known for its traditional, home-style, and regional cuisine served in a relaxed, family-like atmosphere).  An osteria is a simple Italian establishment traditionally focused on serving wine and light snacks, similar to a wine bar or pub.  A tavola calda (literally “hot table”), is an Italian cafeteria-style establishments…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyItalianPizzaRating: Outstanding

M’tucci’s Italian Restaurant – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:27 PM

“Sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone..” —Stanley Tucci as Segundo in Big Night With a name like M’Tucci’s Italian Restaurant, you might wonder if the Italian restaurant on the intersection of Coors and Montano is named for Academy Award nominated actor Stanley Tucci. After all, Tucci co-starred in Big Night and Julie & Julia, arguably two of the very best food movies in recent years. Initially christened M’tucci’s Kitchina, the “Kitchina” part of the restaurant’s name was obviously a whimsical play on “cucina,” the Italian term for kitchen, but was spelled more similarly to Kachina, the Hopi ancestral spirits. In any case, if the amusing name and fun, casual ambiance don’’t ensnare you, the food certainly will. Step into the expansive dining room and the playfulness hinted by the restaurant’s original name continues. Our immediate impression was “Laissez les bon temps roulette” (let the good times roll) as in New Orleans Mardi Gras. That impression was gleaned from the colorful Mardi Gras-like masks on several walls and a life-sized alligator on another. Then there’s the pergola–large enough to accommodate a table of four–with an ominous lizard crawling down the roof. There’s something to pique your interest everywhere you turn.…

AlbuquerqueDog FriendlyPizzaRating: Excellent

Farina Pizzeria – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno8:36 PM

On May 14, 2011, I had the great honor, pleasure and privilege of being the first guest on Break the Chain, the weekly radio show (sadly no longer on the air) dedicated to showcasing the great independent mom-and-pop restaurants in and around Albuquerque.  When the show’s charismatic host, my friend Ryan Scott asked me to name the five best pizza restaurants in the Albuquerque area, I omitted Ryan’s very favorite — and he yelled at me (good-naturedly (I think)).  I asked forgiveness for my transgression, stating in my defense that I couldn’t well include Farina, having visited only once with attempts for a second visit being quashed by long waits. The only pizza for which I’ve ever waited more than half an hour–in 115-degree temperature, no less–is the transcendent pizza at Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.  It was a pizza worth the near dehydration and painful sunburn resultant from standing in blistering sun for nearly an hour with other equally ardent aficionados (masochists?).  I’ve often considered it heretical madness that some Duke City diners have compared Farina with Pizzeria Bianco.  How, after all, can a pizza crafted in Albuquerque compare with the pizza James Beard award-winning author Ed Levine considers the…

AlbuquerqueItalianNew MexicoRating: Excellent

Il Localetto Rossi Italian Cuisine – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

Academy Award-nominated actor Stanley Tucci and I share a selfsame perspective on eating well:  “To me, eating well is not just about what tastes good but about the connections that are made through the food itself. I am hardly saying anything new by stating that our links to what we eat have practically disappeared beneath sheets of plastic wrap. But what are also disappearing are the wonderful, vital human connections we’re able to make when we buy something we love to eat from someone who loves to sell it, who bought it from someone who loves to grow, catch, or raise it. Whether we know it or not, great comfort is found in these relationships, and they are very much a part of what solidifies a community.” In his highly acclaimed CNN series “Searching For Italy,” viewers rarely (if ever) saw Tucci dining by himself.  Tucci understands that sharing a meal is an intimate experience, and those who sit beside us at the table can feel this intimacy: Bonds with loved ones become stronger, and strangers feel like strangers no more.  Coming together and sharing a meal is the most communal and binding thing in almost every place in the…

ArizonaDog FriendlyItalianPizzaRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Bottega Pizzeria Ristorante – Glendale, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In a Phoenix.org feature published in November, 2022, David Tynda declared that Phoenix is a top city for pizza. “I say to people that I believe Phoenix is the pizza capital of the U.S. and I wait for them to slap me across the face,” said Tyda, the co-manager of Phoenix Festivals.  The Matador Network agreed: “Phoenix is a slice of pizza heaven. Yes, that Phoenix, the one where it’s nearly hot enough in the summer to cook said pizza on the sidewalk. While Chicago and New York were dueling it out for pizza supremacy, Phoenix was quietly building an army of pizza joints that could dethrone Naples.” Not that very long ago, most of the nation’s crusty cognoscenti conceded “It may not be New York or Chicago, but the pizza’s not bad,”   a culinary equivalent of saying a girl isn’t very pretty, but she’s got a great personality.  Only a critic with masochistic tendencies would dispute the superiority of Pizzeria Bianco, but every other pizzeria in the Valley of the Sun barely warranted a mention on any national dialogue about pizza.  Most conversations about pizza in the Valley of the Sun still begin with Pizzeria Bianco, but alongside…