An Italianized dinner experience: Restaurant La Rustica (20. September 2022)
Frankly, I was a bit surprised to find an Italian restaurant like this in Riyadh. And to be fair, it’s not entirely Italian, it’s more an Italian-style restaurant, i.e., inspired by Italian cuisine. We went for an assortment of different dishes like the “rocket salad (rocket salad, sun-dried tomato, walnut, Parmesan cheese & EVOO)” (50.00 SAR) which was quite decent to start with.
The “Forno Provolone Cheese (Provolone cheese with tomato sauce baked in wood oven and oregano)” (73.00 SAR) is kind of an Italianized version of a Swiss cheese fondue. And while it’s basically just molten cheese to be dipped with some flavoured and seasoned pita bread, it was not all too bad to try and eat.
What I liked a lot were the “zucchini fritti (red and green fried zucchini, served with truffle cream sauce)” (44.00 SAR) which are basically fries made out of zucchini. They were light, tasty, and went very well with the truffle cream sauce. And I was especially positively surprised by the fact that the sauce wasn’t all artificial in taste, but quite decent.
Then it was pizza time! One element I absolutely loved about the place is the “Half & Half Pizza” concept where you get to pick two different pizzas, and they are, properly separated, served in one pizza. The first one was the “Bianca Pizza (buffalo mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, basil and EVOO)” (36.00 SAR) and the “burrata pizza (burrata cheese, cherry tomato sauce, basil, rocket salad & EVOO)” (37.00 SAR). While I absolutely liked the bianci pizza (right part of the picture), the burrata pizza part was a bit of a disappointment as the ‘burrata part’ was rather minimal.
Secondly, we went for the “peperoni pizza (buffalo mozzarella, tomato sauce, peperoni, basil & EVOO)” (34.00 SAR) and the “marinara pizza” (23.00 SAR) which were both very decent and enjoyable.
The “funghi & truffle pizza” (126.00 SAR) which was our third pizza was fine too. Not necessarily my favourite as I don’t think you necessarily have to put truffle onto a pizza, but other than that, it was quite okay to have. One word of caution – if you ask for things to be brought when they are ready, you have all the food you ordered on your table within about 5 minutes! So, if you ordered more than one dish, you will end up shovelling things down to kind of try to eat them while they are warm. So, make it clear you want things brought to your table step by step.
Other than that, the La Rustica plays it down quite a bit when it comes to appearance. The restaurant interior is quite nice, and the outside terrace is also quite lovely. All in all, if you are looking for an Italian-like experience, the La Rustica is a good place to go to.
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Contact Details:
Restaurant La Rustica
Wadi Al Artawi Street 48
Al Olaya
12212 Riyadh (KSA)
Tel.: +966 55 325 2521
Homepage: https://www.instagram.com/la_rustica_sa/
About the Author: Sven
I started the blog in October 2009, while living in Milan which I definitely consider to be one of the food capitals of the world. I was in touch with food since my early childhood (as my father is a former chef). Whenever I can, I travel the world to discover new places, to meet people but mostly to try local dishes and to find hidden gems! If you know a place worth going, please drop a line to: info@thediningexperience.org.
Currently, I am a member of the following food-related associations: Chevalier @Chaîne des Rôtisseurs Zurich-Ville; Membre Gourmet Dégustateur @Ordre Mondial des Gourmets Dégustateurs [OMGD]; Gesellschafter @Goldener Fisch and Member @Slowfood Convivium Zurich City. 
