The Room
Émai Italian is a small hillside restaurant near Hoa Binh Square, run by chef Marco Bianchi who moved to Dalat from Emilia-Romagna and has been cooking here since 2018. The room seats around forty, with an open kitchen, exposed-stone walls, and a short wine list leaning heavily Italian. The atmosphere is warm, slightly rustic, and wholly unpretentious.
The menu is a tight modern Italian — around a dozen dishes, rotated monthly. Pastas are handmade each morning using locally-milled Dalat flour; the signature tagliatelle al tartufo uses truffle sourced from Vietnam's own small truffle farming operations. The pizzas are Naples-style out of a wood-fired oven imported from Italy. The short secondi list includes a grilled Dalat beef fillet and a pan-seared local trout that may be the freshest fish course in the highlands.
The wine list is around sixty Italian labels, with a focus on Piedmont and Tuscany and a few thoughtful natural-wine inclusions. Prices are gentle — a proper three-course Italian dinner with wine runs $30 to $55 per head, which in Vietnamese highland terms is a mid-tier splurge and in European terms is absurd value.
The restaurant is universally recommended by Dalat hotel concierges and fills most nights. Reservations are advisable; Facebook Messenger or phone both work. Dinner is the only meal service.
Why It's Best for First Date
For a First Date, Émai Italian offers the rare combination in Dalat of real atmospheric warmth, a chef with a story, and food that will not disappoint either a Vietnamese partner or an international one. The open kitchen provides conversational fuel; the small room's acoustic is conversation-friendly; and the wine list is priced permissively enough to allow a second bottle without ceremony.
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