2024 · 2025
Best Italian
El Dorado Hills
★★
We opened the doors in spring of 2023 with a simple idea: build the room you'd actually want to spend a slow evening in, pour a glass for whoever sat down, and feed them the food the Dedier family has been cooking since long before any of this was a restaurant.
The bones are Roman. Cacio e pepe. Carbonara. Amatriciana. Gricia. The four pastas the city built, made the way they're made there — not the way they got rewritten on the boat over.
The fingerprints are Californian. The farms a short drive from the dining room. The dust on a bottle of Paso Robles cab. The way the light comes in low through the window at eight o'clock in May, and nobody's in any hurry to leave.
We hold ourselves to five-star technique because the food deserves it. We refuse to act like a five-star dining room because you deserve better than that. The plates are serious. The room isn't. Our team is trained to feed you like a chef and treat you like a neighbor — because most of you are.
A lot of restaurants tell you that you're family. We actually mean it. Sit down long enough and you'll figure out which one we are.
California is our roots.
Rome is our soul.
You are our reason.
Rome wrote the recipes. California fills the pantry. The menu changes when the season does.
A few frames from the last few weeks. The team behind the line. The neighbors at the bar. The long Friday table that ran longer than it was supposed to. Some of these people you'll recognize. Some of these nights you'll wish you'd been at.
A handful of nights a year we set the room a little differently. Wine dinners, the courtyard ovens, private events, and the table at the back if you bring everyone you love.
A wood-oven supper outside on the courtyard. One long table. A stack of pizzas straight off the deck of the oven. A magnum we won't see again. Twelve seats only — family-style, the way Sunday is supposed to be.
Get on the listA chef at the head of the bench, two hours, and a glass of wine within reach. You'll learn how the four pastas of Rome actually get made — and you'll leave with a plate of what you rolled, the recipe to take home, and the only honest answer to "what should we do this weekend?" in El Dorado Hills. Twelve couples maximum.
Get on the listOne winemaker. One menu. Five courses from the kitchen, five pours from a single winery — most often from right up the road in El Dorado County. The dining room turns into one long table for the night, and the wine gets poured by the people who actually grew the grapes.
Get on the listThe night the kitchen and the cellar both have something to say. A Tuesday-only menu, a wine list designed to be pulled into it, and a room small enough that it feels like a dinner party someone forgot to send invitations to. There's no reason a Tuesday night can't be the best meal of your week.
Get on the list
Why our flour comes from Italy — and why the people who get sick on bread at home eat pasta in Rome and feel fine.
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A short lesson in DOP — what the law actually requires of a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano, and why it matters in a pan of cacio e pepe.
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Notes from the Tower Bridge Dinner — four chefs, one menu, and what it means for Folsom and El Dorado Hills to become a real food destination.
ReadRight off Highway 50 — five minutes from Palladio in Folsom. Park anywhere; the cute little Italian spot under the movie theater is hard to miss.
Sunday through Thursday, twelve until eight-thirty. Friday and Saturday, twelve until nine-thirty. Larger parties and private events through the dining room — write us and we'll write you back the same day.
— The Dedier family