The eye rolls said it all.
The first came when a friend visiting from out of town heard he was about to try Il Dandy’s carpaccio di gamberi (raw spot prawns) with a sweet Calabrian Tropea red onion sorbet. “Ugh, please, are you kidding,” his eye roll said. And then this Midwestern man — whose ideal night on the town includes a stop at The Cheesecake Factory — tasted it, raised his eyebrows and exclaimed, “Wow, that’s really good. I wasn’t expecting to like that.” No kidding.
On another visit to Il Dandy, the new, gorgeously designed contemporary Italian restaurant in Bankers Hill, my frequent dining companion — a pizza connoisseur — looked like she was going to pass out when she bit into a slice of the rustichella pizza, with rapini (broccoli rabe), burrata and maialino nero (piglet) sausage. Her eyes rolled back into her head. “Are you OK?” I asked. “Oh my god, that is sooo good,” she swooned.
Therein lies the beauty of Il Dandy: Whether the dish is inventive or purposely simple, whether your taste runs from the pedestrian to epicurean, this is a pretty delicious restaurant.
Which is what you would expect when two Michelin-starred chefs — father and son Antonio and Luca Abbruzzino — are imported from Calabria to expand and elevate San Diego’s Italian dining landscape, while making a name for themselves in the U.S.
A joint project with brothers and fellow Calabrians Dario and Pietro Gallo, who own Little Italy’s popular Civico 1845, Il Dandy feels like a next-level Italian restaurant. It’s stylish and sophisticated, with a focused menu utilizing ingredient combinations and techniques rarely seen here. The exceptional vegan dishes, smartly curated list of small Italian wine producers and extensive Italian spirits selection distinguish Il Dandy even further.
Yet, there’s been something nagging me about Il Dandy since it opened in early May. It’s not the quality of the food. Of the approximately 20 dishes I’ve tried over the course of three visits, including each of the four pizzas and six of the seven pastas, there’s only been one dud in the bunch (a fairly wan gnocchi with seafood; I ordered it twice to make sure). The service staff has found its stride; my waiter on my final dinner was as knowledgeable and skilled as I’ve had in San Diego. And I love the sexy, soaring, 5,000-square-foot space, adorned in white stone, peacock blue velvet, gold tone finishes and a cool, cutting-edge modern and abstract art collection.
No, maybe what’s been eating at me is that the Abbruzzinos aren’t taking us to a next level that’s high enough. Maybe my expectations were too high that the gastronomy at Il Dandy would be more avant-garde, more risky, more completely outside the box, instead of having just one foot out reaching for new heights. I wanted more Tropea red onion sorbet-like fantastical flavor oddities. I wanted San Diego to be rocked, not gently rolled.
If the Abbruzzinos are holding back, I wonder, is it out of fear of alienating us? Right or wrong, San Diego’s collective palate has long been considered unadventurous. Or are the Abbruzzinos suppressing their creative culinary fireworks so they can unleash them when Arama, Il Dandy’s six-seat, tasting menu-only “restaurant-within-a-restaurant,” opens in the coming weeks?
(Adjacent to the open kitchen, Arama is an exact replica of the dining room at Ristorante Abbruzzino in Calabria, down to the six-seat, midcentury modern table, lighting and flooring. In 2013, Ristorante Abbruzzino became the first Calabrian restaurant to earn a Michelin star, which it retains today.)
Flashes of Michelin-quality execution dot the menu, as with the burrata ball filled with fresh tuna floating in a delectable tomato water, the masterful contrast of a dry-aged ribeye’s crispy, breaded coating and heavenly melt-in-your-mouth interior, or the refined yet rustic chamomile-smoked lamb with goat’s milk cream.
And while Il Dandy isn’t blowing up the San Diego Italian restaurant narrative, it is redefining certain elements of it. Here are a few ways:
There isn’t a red pasta sauce in sight
None of the seven pastas, including two on the vegan menu, are traditional, familiar dishes you find throughout San Diego. And that’s a good thing for a restaurant representing the contemporary way people are eating in Italy today. Whether hearty, like the burnt wheat cavatelli with rabbit ragù, hazelnut and truffle, or bright like the spaghetti with clams, squash blossoms, mint and pine nuts, decadent like the beef ragù-stuffed ravioli with caciocavallo cheese and cured egg yolk, or brilliantly colored and flavored like the seafood risotto with ‘nduja, tumeric and orange butter, Il Dandy’s pastas are refreshingly original. Who knew red sauce wouldn’t even be missed?
Vegan cuisine is being taken to a new level
As with the full vegan menu at Civico 1845, the Gallo brothers have always been committed to offering vegan food that isn’t simply a “regular” dish minus the animal products. At Il Dandy, the five vegan choices are purposefully constructed — and also among the best things you can order. Six of us one night declared the smoked eggplant, tomato, pistachio and mint pizza the star of the entire dinner. The raviolo alla Norma, with ultra-creamy almond ricotta, plum tomatoes, dates and eggplant cream, sheds the dish’s well-worn Sicilian roots and tastes very of this moment. And the crispy cauliflower, adorned with superfluous and frankly flavorless fresh black truffle slices, lie on a bed of toasted hazelnut cream so silky, you’d swear it was made with heavy cream.
Speaking of heavy, Il Dandy’s cooking isn’t
The Abbruzzinos’ cooking relies on a light touch, whether from deft uses of plate-brightening mint, bergamot, orange or anise, or the luscious nut sauces micro-puréed in a commercial-grade, zillion-dollar Paco Jet. Spreadable, spicy ‘nduja sausage isn’t slathered on; it’s dabbed just so and always balanced with something citrusy. The strikingly unique pizza dough is seemingly weightless. It flips standard pizza dough proportions with 70 percent water, 30 percent flour (versus the other way around). Using 100-year-old starter from Italy and Caputo Saccorosso 00 flour from Naples — the gold standard for long fermentation doughs — the pizza base is allowed to rise for 72 hours before it’s baked in a 1,000-degree oven. What emerges is airy, ethereal perfection, with just the right amount of char. The homemade bread rounds (which cost $6) show the same baking brilliance.
In an interview in January, Dario Gallo said Il Dandy would eschew heavy sauces, cream, butter and pan frying in favor of preparations more compatible with a healthier, lighter Mediterranean diet. “It’s more about the flavors. San Diego needs to know what every ingredient tastes like. What Italian really tastes like. It’s nothing fancy, ” Gallo said. “But this is going to be the revolution.”
One of the most highly anticipated openings of the year, Il Dandy is an easy restaurant to recommend. Its prices — $15 to $28 for appetizers, salads and pizzas; $22 to $31 for pastas; $32 to $42 for entrées — is commensurate to the quality. The Italian-accented cocktails are delightful, while the almost all-Italian wine list gives deserved exposure to obscure grapes and small producers. Ever had a Greco bianco, magliocco or gaglioppo from Calabria? Here you can, and should, either by the glass or bottle. The size of the selection of Italian spirits is unrivaled in San Diego: five dessert wines, five digestivi, seven vermouths, four sambucas, five grappe, and 20 amari round out the list. All four of the desserts are fine in a moderately creative, not-too-sweet way. None is all that memorable.
Now, about that name. To the right of Il Dandy’s front door hang the words, “dan-dy, n. A man unduly devoted to style, neatness, fashion in dress. A man who places particular emphasis on the elevation and satisfactions of one’s cultural passions.”
A dandy is a term that’s used for a natty, literate, bon vivant in the vein of an Oscar Wilde, Andy Warhol, Tom Wolfe, David Bowie, Andre 3000 or Billy Porter. What that all has to do with this restaurant, I’m not quite sure. (Cue my own eye roll here.)
A better name choice might have been I Bronzi, named for the most significant work of art at Il Dandy, “Bronzi di Riace.” The real Bronzi are two, full-size, perfectly preserved Greek statues (circa 450 B.C.) found off the coast of Calabria in 1972. Artists Luigi Rovella and Franco Paternostro represent them not as the buff, bearded Greek warriors of the statues, but as two, 10-foot otherworldly bronze-colored figures, cast in a patchwork of circles that evoke both seafoam and machine gears. The work links classicism with modernity and silently lords over the dining room with grace and gravitas.
The Bronzi di Riace are the undisputed cultural jewels of Calabria. You could also say the Abbruzzinos are the culinary jewels of Calabria — and now San Diego. Here’s hoping they go for the gold, not just the bronze.
Il Dandy
Address: 2550 Fifth Ave., Bankers Hill
Phone: (619) 310-5669
Online: ildandyrestaurant.com
