Despite flaws, Tutti speaks the best Italian in Mesa
By CRYSTAL PETROCELLI
Get Out

Wait: After perusing the lamp-lit menu on the table out front, we open the door and are shown to a table right away. It’s 7:30 p.m. on a Tuesday.

Service: The staff looks sharp in all black. Our waiter does a nice job detailing the specials and is quick to get our drinks.

When our two appetizers are brought out, our server stands there for a few seconds trying to figure out where to place them. You see, the center of our table is a cluster of salt and pepper shakers, a glass votive, a tall wine menu and a bowl of sugar sticks. Eventually, we all grab something and move it, but Tutti Santi seems too classy a place for an awkward dish delivery like this.

The time between our starters and salads is noticeably slow — a good 10 minutes. When they finally arrive, we’re offered cracked pepper and a bowl of powdered Parmesan is placed on the table.
Soda refills come fast and furious, but halfway into the meal the busboy slows on water refills and I find myself dry numerous times.

Meal: The food here is great — fresh, flavorful and served hot from the pot.

We order three different homemade pastas — a ravioli, lasagna and gnocchi — and enjoy them all. The ravioli and lasagna are both very thin and light. The former has a little ricotta cheese and spinach filling with a creamy tomato sauce. The latter is heavy on the thick, delicious marinara sauce but skimps a bit on the ground sirloin.

Our seafood plates are both lovely. We pick a white sauce for the linguine with clams, which not only has fresh clams mixed with the aromatic sauce, but the bowl is rimmed with clam shells. Our orange roughy is pan-seared in a white wine sauce with a dash of butter and lemon topped off with capers and artichoke hearts — it’s fantastic. The fish is served with a side of penne pasta tossed with olive oil, garlic, pepper and a bit of cheese. It’s simple, yet I can’t stop snagging bites of it.

Tiramisu is quickly becoming one of my favorite desserts, and this is up there with the best I’ve sampled. A heavy coating of powdered cocoa tops off this moist-without-being-too-rum-infused version.

Scene: A nice, long bar is near the entry, and there are a couple of separate dining rooms. The gold walls are hung with posters, paintings, colorful bowls and family photos. The operatic music raining down from above is tough on my ears at times, but the overall feel is romantic and calming.

Bathroom break: Tidy with a few pieces of art. The old-school soap dispenser (the kind where you hit athat rod up to drop soap down) was annoying and didn’t work well.

Tab for four: $122 with tip and tax for Ravioli Alla Nina ($8.95), calamari fritti ($9.95), Caesar salad ($4.95), gnocchi ($12.95), lasagna dei santi ($12.95), linguine with clams ($20.95), orange roughy genovese with penne aglio e olio ($21.95), tiramisu ($6.50) and two sodas ($2.75 each).

If work weren’t buying: While I can’t call it the East Valley’s top Italian restaurant, it’s definitely the best in Mesa.