AVOLI OSTERIA
Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★★
District: Dundee
Northern Italian Cuisine
Perfect For: Casual Dining; Date Night; Takeout
Standout Dishes: Bolognese Bianco; Cacio e Pepe; Mafalde
After Dario Schicke moved to Omaha and opened the award-winning Dario’s Brasserie in 2006, he began conversing with customers to understand the Omaha food scene. He was struggling to find great Italian restaurants; when he and his family craved pasta, they usually stayed home and made it themselves. And when Dario asked customers about the best Italian restaurants in Omaha, they often had no response or were embarrassed to utter the name of a national chain.
“No one was really focused on bringing the Italian culture back to life,” Schicke said on the Restaurant Hoppen podcast.
Dario sensed an opportunity to open Omaha’s eyes to a new cuisine that he loved. So he traveled to the Piedmont region of Northern Italy, worked in five different kitchens and learned all that he could, and returned to open Avoli Osteria in 2013. He didn’t want another old school, red-sauce Italian restaurant with a menu full of lasagna and meatballs. This would be modern Italian cuisine with a twist.
Omaha’s restaurant scene has evolved in the years since Avoli’s inception, and I’d argue there are now several standout restaurants I’d happily recommend to someone for pasta. Yet Avoli still stands among the best.
True to Dario’s vision, Avoli is a different experience than what most Omahans might expect from an Italian restaurant. The portions are ample, but aren’t spilling off the plate. The pasta is closer to al dente, with a bit more of a bite, and most of the pasta sauces lack the ever-present tomato.
In breaking from the expected, Avoli allows you to experience something elevated. If you want a giant plate of meatballs and red sauce, Olive Garden awaits. If you want to eat like Italians really do, this is the type of restaurant you visit.
What immediately makes Avoli stand out is the pasta is all made in house. That means a tender, silky texture with a delicate bite, and a richer, more pronounced flavor than you’ll get from boxed pasta.
From the wavy mafalde to the tubular rigatoni to the stuffed ravioli, each noodle has unique elements that create a different dining experience. While the sauce and accompaniments are important at Avoli, the pasta itself is the star, as it should be.
Take, for example, the Mafalde, a dish topped with a savory, delicious wild boar ragu that’s more of a meat accompaniment than a sauce. It adheres perfectly to the long, crinkled noodles, which have the perfect level of chewiness. Similarly, the Radiatori employs small, corkscrew-like noodles to provide all kinds of ledges and crannies for the bold, nuanced, rich arugula pesto to nest. Balls of fresh mozzarella add a milky creaminess.
Then theres’ the traditional Carbonara, which is typically loaded down with cream and fat. Avoil’s Carbonara sauce is dense, but it doesn’t drown out the rest of the dish. Its moderate application allows the noodles, along with the flecks of crispy, salty pancetta, to stand out.
Perhaps the best example of Avoli’s brilliance is its signature dish, the Bolognese Bianco. The large rigatoni noodles could be the final exam of a master’s class in pasta craft alone.
But the sauce—or dare I suggest, meat accompaniment—sets this dish apart. Though technically this white-wine based topping is indeed a sauce, it’s not wet and cloyingly sweet as so many are. Rather, it highlights the savory, rich pork and veal, which camp in the rigatoni bunkers to deliver delicious bite after bite. A healthy spattering of toasted hazelnuts add texture and depth.
Not feeling pasta? No problem. Avoli also has several Northern Italy secondi staples such as dry-aged ribeye, chicken dishes, and several fish preparations.
One of the more difficult aspects of visiting Avoli is not filling up on appetizers and small plates before your entrees arrive. Octopus is a finicky protein that can easily be tough or chewy if cooked improperly, but those adjectives would never be used to describe Avoli’s Grilled Octopus. The tentacle is cooked slowly to become wonderfully tender with a slight bouncy consistency, and delicate flavor and a hint of oceanic brinyness.
And the Focaccia is a must for any carb lover. This bread features a moist, tender crumb and a hearty, crusty exterior. The grilling technique added texture and bits of char, and dunks in olive oil brought fruity, peppery notes.
Avoli has a carefully curated list of cocktails, beers, spirits, and wines, offering flavors all over the spectrum. The Acero Old Fashioned is a bit sweeter than the traditional take on the drink, as maple and orange give it a sweeter, more citrus flavor, but it’s an interesting change of pace.
Avoli is something different than you’ll find at most Omaha pasta joints, and that’s not a bad thing at all. It’s not hard to see that Dario’s hard work to perfect his pasta game paid off; the noodles are incredible, as good as you’ll find in Omaha. The accompanying sauces aren’t heavy-handed and overbearing, but instead complement the starchy star.
Dario’s goal was to bring Omaha a pasta restaurant it could be proud of. In Avoli, he absolutely achieved that goal.