Salt Lake Magazine Dining Guide 2010
Salt Lake Magazine - 2010
Fall dining guide: 15 essential Wasatch Front restaurants
Salt Lake Tribune - October 2009
"Best Chef"
Salt Lake Magazine - 2008
Lugano takes Manhattan
Chef to give the Big Apple a taste of Utah
by Valerie Phillips
"There's no Plate Like Home"
by Valerie Phillips
Utah chefs get prestigious N.Y. invitation
By Valerie Phillips
Recipe: Lugano's Pizza Dough
by Lugano's Chef Greg Neville
Recipe: Heirloom Tomato-Beet Gazpacho with Shrimp & Avocado Tapenade
by Lugano's Chef Greg Neville
Recipe: Peach Vanilla Sorbet
by Lugano's Chef Greg Neville
March/April 2010
"Greg Neville seems to have rediscovered himself, and his restaurant is better than ever. A master at complex flavor layering that is the heart of Italian cucina, Neville's a hands-on guy, working the stoves and the room at the same time. He greets his regulars and makes the rounds - but, most of all, Neville is a chef who takes great pride in the source of his food and its preparation."
April, 2007
“How do you determine the best Italian restaurant in town? First, the food has to respect the seasons as Italians have been cooking for generations. Second, there’s reverence for the regional diversity of the cuisine – the hearty richness of Emiglia-Romagna and Piemonte, the earthy simplicity of Puglia and Ubria. And of course, there has to be plenty of vino to savor. Chef/owner Greg Neville has his team bring these factors to life with wild mushroom tagliatelle and tender osso buco. The menu is inspired by Italy, driven by the seasons, and savored by Utah.”
July, 2007
"Lugano’s chef and owner Greg Neville knows the SECRET of great Northern Italian cooking – selecting the finest ingredients and letting them speak for themselves. His signature dish, carpaccio, enunciates that philosophy loud and clear. Using locally grown organic arugula and the finest cut of top round Angus, Neville keeps it fresh and light. Then there’s his calamari dish that’s squid stuffed with squid: Neville grills sopresatta salami and tentacles, tucks the tasty combo into tiny squid and cooks them over a wood fire. Why bother with a main dish?"
-Roger Toll
SALT LAKE CITY SCENE
Suite Spots by Sabrena Suite Mangum
November/December 2006
''Sometimes suburbia is best. Let me elaborate. I am a girl all about downtown. Our apartment is kitty-corner from the Utah State Capitol building. We’re a block and a half from city center, a.k.a. Temple Square. I love the lights and look of downtown. I love the hum of production and the buzz of a business district. But sometimes one needs to escape to greener pastures, or at least the East Bench.
Enter Lugano Restaurant, nestled at the foot of Mt. Olympus, i.e. Holladay, Utah. Its cozy neighborhood atmosphere, more SL County, than SL City, combines bistro-style ambience with the rich textures of Italy, and I adore it. I’m not the only one singing the praises of this joint. Over the past six years, Lugano has earned local and national accolades. In the restaurant’s infancy, City Weekly (Salt Lake’s independent newspaper) and Salt Lake City Magazine both greeted the green Italian hotspot as Best New Restaurant. Just two years later, Lugano earned the nationally acclaimed Zagat’s Top 20 Restaurants in Utah (2002-2006) and America’s Top Italian Restaurants (2004-2005). By 2003, Wine Spectator honored the restaurant with its Award of Excellence, and Lugano has been a staple on the list ever since.
What merits all the fuss? I’m not a food critic, just a food appreciator, but from my vantage point, there are a million reasons why the particular and the plebeians love this place. Farm-fresh ingredients from area suppliers make all the difference. The restaurant is a great corporate citizen, participating in numerous community programs and charities. Plus there is plenty of easy parking. However, for me, the top three reasons to dine at Lugano are the beet salad, bruschetta and Chef/Owner Greg Neville.
The beet salad is a creation like nothing else I’ve ever tasted. The presentation looks almost too pretty to eat. But I treat myself to the perfect bite anyway. Neville explained that the beets are roasted with salt, whole garlic, cloves, rosemary, balsamic vinegar and a veggie broth. I don’t want to hurt my grandmother’s feelings, but I like these even better than her homemade, bottled variety. Neville pairs the beets with avocado, baby greens, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette and shaved fennel. (It’s that licorice tasting veggie, and it totally ''works'' for this creation.
At our last visit to Lugano, I taught my better-half about the science behind a perfect bite. In the past few months, I’ve learned that Neville has the somewhat uncanny ability to take foods that are not my favorites (blue cheese and fennel, for example), and turn them into something I crave. When this culinary master gets all the ingredients together, you can’t help but indulge. I start eating my husband’s portion because the avocados are so good that I choose to forget we still have a main course coming our way. We’re both eyeing the bruschetta because it’s the most amazing variety in the world. Honestly, I’ll go on record here and now that Lugano’s is my favorite of all the bruschettas I've ever tried – and I've tried a lot!
The incredible flavor combines olive oil perfectly saturating the bread, a hint of the wood burning oven, and farm-fresh tomatoes from local growers. ''And we make our mozz,'' Neville said of the delicious cheese.
Every visit to Lugano is like a mini-lesson from some swanky culinary academy, sans pretension. You won’t find a pinch or a smidge of pomposity in Neville’s kitchen. He’s as enthused about the people in his restaurant as he is about the food that’s been designed. He mingles and wanders from table to table; then visits, smiles, laughs and visits some more. It doesn’t matter if you’re a new patron to Lugano or an old timer. If Neville is in the building, he’ll stop by and say ''hello.''
That’s part of the reason the place is so electric. Lugano celebrates life with food, wine and the clinking of cutlery. Food servers bustle back and forth in the open-air kitchen. One attentive soul, bearing the nametag ''Fernando,'' could save the world from dehydration one glass at a time. (Mine never gets past the halfway mark.) The whole adventure is like riding a bicycle for the first time – it's a new endeavor that you can't wait to share with everyone. I suggest you start with the bruschetta.''
See you on the scene,
Sabrena
FEAST, ITALIAN-STYLE
November 2006
By night, chef Greg Neville's Lugano is buzzing. But on Saturday afternoons, the scene at this modern Italian restaurant is almost studious. That's when the energetic Neville opes his kitchen for regional Italian cooking classes. This month, learn all about the Lazio region and the cuisine of Rome. Think bucatini all'amatriciana with guacamole (a cured Italian bacon), fall artichokes, and Frascati wine. Hands-on participation is optional, but after the six-course meal is finished, everyone eats the results.
