san diego barona casino italian restaurant menu

Heresy alert! Maybe San Diegans are just too nice and not demanding enough.Often missing is the deft touch needed for delicacy. So many dishes are overly complicated, overpowered by way too many ingredients, or with components that make zero sense in Italian food (spaghetti carbonara with brandy cream sauce?!). It’s not like chefs here aren’t trying, it’s that they may be trying too hard.Authentic Italian food is simple - the fewer the ingredients, the better - so the quality of those ingredients is essential. The access to primo ingredients isn’t superior a few hours north but what chefs seem to be selecting is.Why? Here are my theories on why San Diego’s Italian restaurants aren’t better: We have plenty of good Italian restaurants but few great ones. In fact, it seems like every time I have Italian food outside San Diego, it’s better than what I have here. I also had one of the best plates of pasta on the planet (Parmesan gnocchi with sweet corn, spinach and mushrooms) at Los Olivos Cafe in Santa Barbara wine country. twice and had great Italian food at Union and Terra (Sister: You’re eating your spaghetti one strand at a time, like you don’t want it to end. Meanwhile, within this four-month stretch, I went to L.A. (Was the list credible? I had eaten at about 20 of the places on it and agreed with the choices.) I got excited when The Daily Meal’s list of “America’s 50 Best Italian Restaurants” landed in my inbox, but not one San Diego restaurant made the ranking.

RELATED: Readers respond, “I stirred the pasta pot with my list of San Diego’s best Italian restaurants - now it’s your turn”

I did such due diligence checking out their suggested restaurants, I’ll be wearing yoga pants through the holidays. Neither did the 12 or so rave recommendations colleagues and readers sent me. The closure of two excellent downtown San Diego Italian restaurants - Bice in the Gaslamp (last summer) and Bottega Americano in the East Village (in February) - didn’t help my search. As hard as a wheel of aged Parmigiano-Reggiano apparently, for someone whose standards have been raised by being: Italian-American, with a Sicilian-born mother from New York (Arthur Avenue, the Bronx’s Little Italy, no less) and has lived and traveled extensively in Italy.

San diego barona casino italian restaurant menu