Restaurant Review: Dahl & DiLuca Ristorante Italiano, Sedona, AZ

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I love Sedona. I really do. I think it’s indescribable and you need to see it to understand the beauty of the area. That being said, we’d seen it already so it wasn’t high on our list of places to revisit. During our Southwest trip, we could have made the drive from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon in one day and been totally OK with it. It just happened that that between my scheduled vacation days from work and our reservations at the Grand Canyon, we had a couple of days to spend somewhere so we decided to go back to Sedona. Not because of the red rocks, the vortexes or the art but because of a restaurant. (Note: This was before we went on our Pink Jeep ride so I admit that I was wrong about returning and we had a wonderful time while we were there.)

We’re not beyond traveling to eat at a restaurant. We went back to the pizza place at the Grand Canyon because we had such good memories from our last trip. This was different. During our last trip to Sedona with Adventures by Disney, we had a free night to eat wherever we wanted. Some people went to the Cowboy Club to try the rattlesnake but we passed on that. Instead, we asked our guides a question my dad taught me years ago: “If you were here for only one night, where would you eat?” This is a different question than what people often ask, “Where’s a good place to go?” That question makes the person you’re asking try to figure out what you like. Instead, my dad’s question asks where THEY like.After a second, our guides asked us if we had any preferences of types of food. We replied that we liked GOOD food. Immediately, they referred us to a restaurant and we made a reservation. I knew that we has done well because when the hotel concierge called our room that evening to see if we had plans (because we could eat at the hotel), I informed him we had reservations at this restaurant. His reply was “Oh, you’re fine. That’s wonderful. I’d say to enjoy your dinner but I know you will.”

Needless to say, we had a fantastic meal. I referred my dad and his wife to eat there during their trip to Sedona in 2015 and they reported the meal was as good as we said it would be. I was more than excited that we were getting to go back and hoped that I hadn’t built up my expectations too much.

Dahl & DiLuca Ristorante Italiano
2321 West Highway 89A
Sedona, AZ 86336

The restaurant is what I’d consider a classic Italian restaurant. It’s a tad on the fancy side and it’s a favorite for locals for special occasions so I’d say you need to keep the shorts and t-shirts at home for this one. We had a piano player there for our dinner, serenading us with all of the hits from the 50s all the way to the 80s. That’s not a diss, but this is the ambiance the place is going for.

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Just like fine #wine, we get better with age. #22yearsOfModernRomance

A post shared by Dahl Ristorante Italiano (@dahl_ristorante_italiano) on Dec 20, 2017 at 1:11pm PST

Now, this place can get busy. We had reservations, showed up 30 minutes early. and were told they’d seat us in 30 minutes. We’d usually hang out at the bar but that area was also packed with tables of people eating and there’s no space near the maitre’d stand to wait. FWIW, I love the stone masonry (ala, ancient Rome) decor.

We decided to go out to our car and just surf Facebook until our reservation time.

I feel badly because I didn’t manage to take any pictures of our food. At a nicer restaurant, I just think it’s inappropriate to snap food pictures (and this is the reason I have no food pictures from The French Laundry). Luckily, other people don’t have that problem about taking food pictures.

I had the best Cioppino that I’ve ever tasted. If I remember correctly, it looked like this:

Sharon ordered what she always gets when we go out for Italian, Classico Bolognese.
It looked a lot like this:

For dessert, Sharon had the Affogato ~ Hazelnut Gelato drowned in Espresso served with Biscotti. She says it tasted as amazing as it looks and sounds.

I have nothing else to say. If you’re in Sedona, eat here. That’s all. It’s amazing. As it turns out, Lisa Dahl now has four different restaurants in Sedona. Had we known this we might have tried one of the other locations our other night in town.

We loved traveling through the American Southwest. Here’s the other posts we’ve written about our trip:

No, My Carry On Bag Is NOT Too Big To Fit In The Overhead
Hotel Review: MOXY Phoenix Tempe/ASU Area, Tempe, AZ
Our Visit to Mystery Castle (a.k.a. “The House A Man Built By Himself”)
Hotel Review: Hyatt Residence Club Sedona, Piñon Pointe, Sedona, AZ
Our Favorite Way To See Sedona: In A Pink Jeep
The Real Reason We Went Back To Sedona 
Our Visit to Bedrock City in Williams, AZ
Hotel Review: Thunderbird Lodge, Grand Canyon, Arizona
Hotel Review: Bright Angel Lodge Cabin. Grand Canyon, Arizona
Yes, You Can Find Good Pizza At The Grand Canyon
Our Visit to Grand Canyon Caverns (Warning! They Might Be Haunted!)
Sharon’s Review of the Hoover Dam
Hotel Review: Hilton Grand Vacations On Paradise (Convention Center)
What To Do When Your Uber Charge Is Higher Than Expected
How We Ended Up Going To The Wrong Airport Lounge in Las Vegas
How We Got A Last-Minute Upgrade On Our Delta Flight
Hotel Review: Candy Cane Inn – Anaheim, CA (Disneyland)
Hotel Review: W Hollywood, Hollywood, California
Our Visit To The Star Wars Themed Scum and Villainy Cantina in Los Angeles
The Case Of The Mysterious MiniBar Charge

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