DANTE
Hoppen Hierarchy:★★★★
District: Legacy
Neapolitan-Style Pizza & Pasta
Perfect For: Date Night; Drinks; Upscale Dining; Casual Dining; Vegan Options
Standout Dishes: Wood-Fired Beef Short Ribs; Margherita Pizza; Tagliatelle & Sunday Ragu; Whole Wood-Roasted Ocean Whitefish; Rigatoni Bolognese; Lasagna
At its core, Italian cooking is at its absolute best when kept simple. Using hyper-seasonal ingredients, fresh produce from local farmers, and established techniques, truly skilled chefs only need a few components to craft masterful dishes.
And when you combine the beautiful, rustic simplicity with a forward-thinking kitchen and a wood-fired oven, you get Dante.
Chef/owner Nick Strawhecker developed a love for Italian cuisine while growing up and traveling throughout Europe and Italy, then later returned to Piedmont and Tuscany to refine his professional skills. The knowledge he gained set a strong base level for Dante to craft authentic Italian dishes and Neapolitan pizzas. And while the menu still features the traditional favorites, it also continues to test new culinary techniques.
Nestled in the Shops of Legacy just off 168th and Center, Dante provides authentic Italian fine dining, but in an incredibly approachable way. The restaurant’s intense focus on fresh ingredients means its roster of pizzas, pastas, and wood-fired entrees not only changes season to season, but day to day. You can visit Dante three times in two weeks and have three very different experiences.
And while so many restaurants claim they use fresh, local ingredients—and those aren’t just buzzwords; they make a huge difference—Dante proves it. The menu lists where the restaurant sourced its meat, pork, cheese, and more. The transparency is refreshing.
PIZZA
Dante is probably best known for its pizza, and for good reason. The restaurant specializes in Neapolitan-style pizzas, which use a specific type of flour (type OO), tomatoes (San Marzano), and cheese (buffalo or fresh mozzarella; Dante uses the latter). The dough is hand-stretched and tossed, topped with a light application of sauce, plenty of ingredients, and gobs of mozzarella, then fed into an 800-degree oven for about 80 seconds.
This cooking process produces a wonderful, bubbly crust with pockets of bitter char on the exterior. The sauce adds a kiss of sweetness and is perfectly acidic, and blobs of fresh mozzarella cheese bring pops of fatty, salty dairy flavor.
To best experience Dante’s dough, crust, and cheese, go with the simple Margherita. The mild, tangy sauce and aromatic basil are delightful, and bites with gobs of fresh mozzarella unless a rush of luscious dairy.
If you want some toppings, Dante has plenty of excellent options:
- Guiseppe: The sausage is mild and herby, more savory than spicy, and it plays well with the sweetness of roasted red peppers and cipollini onions.
- Diavolo: This pizza, with Calabrian chiles, has some kick to it, though soppressata and link sausage bring salt and fat to balance the heat.
- Polpette: Dante’s meatballs (offered as an appetizer) are fantastic savory orbs, and slicing them up for a pizza is a big win. The fresh basil has a pleasant sweet, pungent flavor.
- Funghi Bianco: The white base adds a mild creaminess, but the mushrooms play the star here. The wood-roasting process brings out a bit of sweetness while allowing them to keep their firm, meaty texture.
PASTA
But as great as Dante’s pizza is, its refinement shines through in its pasta dishes. The dishes all start with beautifully fresh-made noodles that are cooked to a perfect chewiness. From spaghetti to rigatoni to filled pastas like agnolotti and ravioli, Dante makes the best handmade pasta you’ll find in Omaha.
The cream of the crop is the Tagliatelle & Sunday Ragu. The noodles themselves are perfect, long ribbons that are both firm and tender. They’re mixed and topped with enormous portions of pulled bison meat (courtesy of the great Central Nebraska Buffalo) that’s been cooked with spicy nduja (a spreadable pork sausage spiked with Calabrian chiles) and red wine. The result is a rich, warming dish that satisfies your appetite, tastebuds, and soul.
Similarly noteworthy is the signature Rigatoni Bolognese. The fresh rigatoni noodles are cooked to perfection with just the right amount of chew. The ragu sauce, a combination of beef and pork cooked in red wine, is beyond delicious. I’m sure this dish would be excellent on its own, but I cannot recommend adding burrata cheese highly enough. The cheese adds a creaminess that ties everything together.
And if you want a hearty, stick-to-your-ribs supper, there’s a reason Dante’s Lasagna Bolognese has established a cult following in Omaha. You won’t find a better version of this dish.
No Omaha restaurant matches Dante’s wide variety of pasta shapes. Made fresh each day, Dante’s pasta options are constantly evolving. Keep your eye on Dante’s filled pastas in particular. These supple pasta purses stuff delicious cheeses and proteins inside a delicate pasta shell and pair them with sauces, jus, and vegetables for the perfect dancing partners.
SMOKED & WOOD-FIRED ENTREES
Dante’s brilliant wood-fired oven, which provides the centerpiece for the restaurant’s open kitchen, does more than just churn out pizzas. Steaks, osso busco, fish, and other proteins benefit from the wood-fired kiss only such a cooking device can provide. One of the best examples is the Plum Creek Farms Chicken & Gnocchi. Don’t be fooled by the name; though there is gnocchi present (and it’s delightful), the chicken is the star. It’s presented two ways: wood-roasted breast (white meat), and braised thighs (dark meat). The thighs are juicer and fattier, and the breast is perfectly tender, and the crispy skin from the wood-fired treatment just sends it over the top. One bite in, I knew this was the best chicken I’d ever tasted.
Dante also purchased a smoker in the spring of 2022 and, under the tutelage of a local pitmaster, added smoked meats to the menu as well. The Wood-Smoked Beef Short Ribs at first look like tremendous brisket, with a vibrant smoke ring and a standout bark. But this meat is so tender and succulent you can cut it with a fork. It is hands down one of the best pieces of meat you’ll find in Omaha.
Dante also excels at fish cookery, as displayed in the Whole, Wood-Roasted Ocean Whitefish. Few places in Omaha are bold enough to serve a fish whole, but Dante executes to perfection. The oven crisps the skin and makes it easy to pull away, revealing brilliantly tender, juicy flesh underneath with flakes away with just the touch a your fork.
DESSERT
Pizza and pasta tend to be heavy dishes that are more likely to inspire naps than a glance at the dessert menu, but again, Dante is different. The airy crust, fresh ingredients, and light application of sauce and cheese make the dishes feel impossibly light. Even if you are full, the dessert is worth a some extra time on the elliptical.
The menu covers all aspects of the dessert spectrum. Craving something sweet? Go for the Butterscotch Budino, a custard-type dish with a chocolate top and a rich, creamy caramel base. It’s quite sweet, but addictingly so without crossing the overly-sugar barrier, as flecks of sea salt balance the sugar.
Dante also offers a rotating menu of wonderful gelatos, a creamier, silkier version of ice cream. A scoop of this along with a coffee is the perfect way to end a meal. And if you can’t decide which seasonal flavor you prefer, order a flight and sample three at once.
APPETIZERS
Dante’s portions are large, so I’d caution against go real heavy on appetizers. But the spread is so tantalizing, it’s hard not to order at least one or two starts to engage your tastebuds.
The rotating menu always a selection of wood-roasted vegetables (whatever’s in season, of course), alongside some form of charcuterie, bread and honeycomb, and the famous David’s focaccia. But there are two menu staples that should be on your mind on any visit:
- Polenta & Meatballs: These meaty orbs of pork are rich and delicious, with almost no filler. They’re paired with a bright tomato sauce and a creamy, oily bed of polenta.
- Tigelle: These thin discs are like upscale English muffins. With a crisp exterior and a soft, pull-apart inside, these are fantastic enjoyed naked or with butter. Pro tip: save one for the end of the meal to sop up any sauce left over on your plate.
I struggle to come up with any negative with Dante. Both the pizza and pasta are excellent and unlike any others you’ll find in Omaha. The ingredients are fresh-sourced and wood-fired (if you’re lucky, your table will allow you a view to watch the oven do its work), the service is superb, the drinks are top of the line… there is little more I want in a restaurant. Of all the Omaha restaurants I love, Dante resides right near the top of the list.
BRUNCH
One might not expect a pizza/pasta restaurant to excel at brunch, too. It’s rare you see such a combo. But to no one’s surprise, Dante doesn’t just offer brunch because it’s the popular thing to do. It makes full use of that brilliant wood-fired oven to serve some of the best brunch in Omaha.
The menu features several pizzas, including ones offered during dinner and breakfast specific creations. The highlight of these is the Buongiorno! (“good morning” in Italian), a white-sauce pie topped with prosciutto, potatoes, garlic, and fried eggs.
It’s the perfect breakfast pizza: eggs, potatoes, a salty protein, and a hearty bread. The white sauce is creamy and rich, almost a milder version of the gravy in a biscuits and gravy dish. The elements work together perfectly, and the runny, creamy yolk of the egg is the frosting on the cake.
Dante’s brunch menu is far more than pizza, however. You’ll find the restaurant’s take on several breakfast staples, such as Tigelle Eggs Benedict, Smoked Salmon, and Ricotta Omelette.
No brunch order is complete without an order of Donut Holes. Donuts tend to be dense, but these golf-ball sized orbs are extremely light and airy. They also come with budino and caramel drizzle, making them a wonderful sweet/salty combo to start the meal.
Everything else on the menu is tremendous, from the decadent Croque to the improved version of the BLT, the B.E.T.—bacon and scrambled eggs sandwiched between tigelle with a tangy mustard aioli. Whatever you order, get a side of the Crispy Potatoes. These potatoes are smashed and deep fried to a perfect crisp and seasoned extremely well. And you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better egg dish than the delightfully fluffy Black Truffle & Ricotta Omelette, with earthy, savory truffles complementing the buttery eggs.
If you’re looking for the best brunch in Omaha, don’t count Dante out just because it’s best known for Italian delicacies. The same care that goes into those dishes translates to breakfast too, and you’ll be hard pressed to find many ways to better satisfy your brunch hankerings than at Dante.