When you think of Italian food, you think of homey restaurants filled with busy conversation, smiling faces, and happy bellies from recipes constructed over generations of family history. Though these types of places are far and few to come by here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the downtown restaurant, Depalmas, does offer a southern spin on the traditional Mom and Pop Italian style. It is a restaurant where you are greeted with smiles and a warming atmosphere where the air is infused with tomato juices, infused garlic olive oil, and fresh herbs. Though at first, the outside has nothing special to catch your eye, it is the big windows that construct the front of the restaurant that invites you to just peep in to see what is cooking. Alongside a simple outside that is ordained with big windows, there is a classic chalkboard on an easel with colorful handwriting specifying nightly specials and enticing you to come in. Sometimes it is these creative, yet minimal ideas that help to catch a customer’s eye. Even though mom and pop places never have the flashy quality, it is the warming environment where guests can feel the simplicity of enjoying just a night of filling food and great conversation.

Inside Depalmas guests are presented with a warm atmosphere, where the walls are painted in deep rich colors, covered in photos, and signed wine bottles from previous guests. It is these types of decorations that make the restaurant have a sense of community. It is an environment where everyone feels like family. Dark wood tables and booths fitted with red leather seats fill a dining room designed with dim lighting and low hanging lights. The dim lighting creates a virtually diverse ambiance. Whether guests are celebrating a romantic date night, a milestone or a girl’s night out the setting serves it all. Aside from the seating and dining room décor, the kitchen is an open concept. It created an image of watching your family cook up a meal. Because the kitchen is a visual aspect of the dining area, guests are invited to look at all the cooking. Being able to see what goes on behind the scenes and the interaction between servers, hosts, and cook’s guests are able to notice that they work like one big family. It allowed for the services while during my attendance to be quite friendly and frankly very easy going. Jokes are made between us and the servers and it feels as if you have known them for a while. This is an important quality in any mom and pop place, it can also stem from the southern hospitality that many possess here in Alabama.

Clear-cut, and organized, the menu is constructed into eight different sections; antipasta, insalata, specialties, pasta, pizza, calzone, dolci, bibitas. The use of Italian headers added a special touch to the menu making it seem more like an authentic place rather than that you were in the heart of downtown Tuscaloosa. The antipasta section contains a take on certain appetizers as Americans we would be used too, however, something to note is how heavy each of the items under this header seemed for just the start of your meal. The heaviness of the appetizers is a clear reflection of American influence where sometimes our food tends to stray from the basic ingredients. We ordered the half size breadsticks which also came with a full size. Warm breadsticks smothered in melted mozzarella cheese was served to us within ten minutes of placing our order and we dug in. Though they made a for a satisfying appetizer, they left me feeling full and in a food coma. The breadsticks resemble how restaurants have created an American touch on Italian food, very greasy and cheesy. What was nice about the half order though was that it was enough to share and the idea of sharing creates the sense of unity at any dinner table. Though we did not order anything from the Insalata section there six different salads to choose from, ranging from a Caesar salad to house salad and even throwing in a Greek salad for maybe those who are not feeling Italian. Under the specialties section, there are several different meat options including entrees made with pork, veal, and shrimp. This section, though much pricier than the pizza or pasta section, has good options for those who are not in the mood for carb-loading. The pizza and calzone section offers several good options, ranging from white pizza to a traditional (in American eyes) Italian pizza. Pizzas are available in medium and large sizes only so enough for the whole table to share with even leftovers possible.

Into the pasta section which is where we ordered from, the shells Florentine and the sausage and roasted red peppers. Both came out in a reasonably portioned sized enough to even split between two people if you were to order possibly a side salad with it. All pasta orders come with two slices of homemade garlic bread, which in the scheme of things is again a way of adding Americanized food to the order but also making it a bit heavier than it needed to be. Both pasta entrées were filling and delicious, however, both had a significant amount of olive oil in the bottom of the bowl that the pasta itself was just soaking in. The basis for any good Italian recipe does in fact stem from a good olive oil, however, I was disappointed at the amount that was left in my bowl when I was finished. Here in America, I feel as if we get in this mindset that everything has to be heavy and large portions to be filling for people, and it was a let down to see that Depalmas fell into that category. When it came to the dishes themselves the sausage and roasted peppers was average, the sausage came thinly sliced and there was more pasta than there were peppers and sausage. The shells Florentine was very cheesy and the shells are rather large which could make for a good sharing dish. Once both dishes were finished we were too full to even consider the dessert. Three simple options, Tiramisu, bread pudding, and cannoli, it was nice to see two traditional Italian desserts mixed with one that might appeal to the more southern pallet. The cannoli were straight from the Ferrara Italian Bakery in New York, which means that it most likely had a more authentic taste to it. The sense of fullness that this dinner gave us reminded me of the feeling that my Grandmother gave me with any meal that she cooked for me. Overall The dishes were delicious and are close enough to what most Americans picture Italian to be. The mom and pop feeling is clear throughout the whole dining experience starting with décor and continuing through the sharable sizes of the food. Depalmas is clearly and Americanized Italian restaurant coming to you from the heart of the south, but its atmosphere and food only tease you into thinking what the real Italy would be like.