New Italian restaurant Al Dente now open in University Heights

Duck pappardelle at newly opened Al Dente restaurant in San Diego.

San Diego Union-Tribune

Jan. 3, 2023 10:41 AM PT

Al Dente, a new Italian restaurant, opened earlier in December in the former Basilico pizzeria space in University Heights.

Launched by the Sicilian and Neapolitan restaurateurs behind San Diego’s Rusticucina and Zama restaurants, Al Dente specializes in Italian dishes with a modern twist. Pastas are made in-house and game meat is used in many dishes, including boar sausage, bison tartare and elk chops. Some of the dishes on the opening menu are oxtail ravioli, truffle gnocchi, fettuccine pistachio e burrata and vongole al prezzemolo (clams in white wine garlic and olive oil sauce).

Al Dente is open from 4 to 10 p.m. daily at 4207 Park Blvd. Visit aldentesd.com.

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Pam Kragen

Pam Kragen is the arts and entertainment editor, as well as the chief theater, dining and opera critic, for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She joined the Union-Tribune staff in October 2012 after 27 years at the North County Times, where she served as the Arts & Features Editor, as well as the paper’s longtime arts writer and theater and opera critic. She is the co-founder of the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from San Diego State University and completed fellowships in theater criticism at the University of Southern California and opera-classical music criticism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. And in 2022, she was chosen as one of the fellows in the prestigious National Critics Institute, run by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterf, Conn.