When we found out Liliana was opening in our current city (Woodbury), we were very excited, because we’re big fans of their other restaurant Estelle but have only made it there a couple times. The food at Liliana did not disappoint.

Starters:

Suppli: Rice croquette, mozzarella, fontina, pepperoni ragu

This was one of our server’s recommendations and I’m so glad we got it. She described it like a mozzarella stick and it definitely gives those vibes – but the flavors are so much better! This sauce was both of our favorite of the entire meal. SO good.

Prosciutto Bruschetta: Stracciatella, melon marmalade, chives

This was husbands choice, because he loves prosciutto. I’m not normally a fan, but this combination had a really good burrata-esque cheese and it had a little sweetness from the melon marmalade which was a pleasant surprise.

Mains:

Garlic Bread: Milk bread, garlic butter, cream cheese, grana padano

Technically the garlic bread is one of the small plates, but we got it to share with our mains and this was my favorite dish of the whole evening. I know that may sound kind of lame, but truthfully this was such an explosion of cream and garlic. Seriously top tier.

Fusilli: Red pepper sugo, harissa, stracciatella, basil pesto

I had the Fusilli and loved that it had a very subtle amount of heat from the harissa, but nothing that a spice baby like me couldn’t handle. I was pretty full from our 3 small plates so can confirm this also makes bomb leftovers the next day haha.

Cavatelli: Duck ragu, peach, crème fraîche, cocoa

Husband changed his plan after hearing the server talk about her favorite dishes and went with the Cavatelli. He really liked it. I’ll admit I tried it and didn’t love the peach fruitiness, but clearly I was in the minority there!

Drinks:

Cappelletti Amaro Spritz

They offer beer, specialty and N/A cocktails, wine (of course), and they also have a list of vermouth and amaro. I chose an amaro spritz which I liked as it had the same flavoring as an aperol spritz except the Cappelletti wasn’t as bitter. Husband ended up selecting one of the mid-tier glasses of wine.

I feel in order to be an honest review I do need to bring up pricing. Each one of our drinks were around $14 and we each had 2, so while you can definitely order less than us or differently than us, I felt like this was worth mentioning so you can plan accordingly.

Atmosphere/Service:

The space is small and maximized, similar to Estelle. They had four different seating options when we were making a reservation: patio, dining, bar and pasta bar. We sat in the dining room and would definitely pick that option as our primary choice again. I would actually recommend potentially avoiding the pasta bar seating if you can.

From what I could see from our dining room spot, the pasta bar consists of 4 high top chairs on a rail that faces into a room through a glass wall. Yes, there is a person making pasta in there so that is cool to see, but it’s basically a storage room and the seating felt more cramped than the other spaces. I also didn’t see that there were purse hooks over there, but there were at the bar. Just some small details that appeared to make that space a little less comfortable than the others – as always with my advice you can take it or leave it!

Overall the space was very pretty and parking wasn’t an issue. Our server was also very knowledgable and we were very happy to receive her recommendations.

As I shared above in the drinks section, you can definitely curate this experience to fit whatever budget you want, but in our experience – selecting what we wanted and not limiting ourselves – this was a more expensive dinner at about $100 per person so while we did love it, realistically due to our personal budgeting this year, it won’t replace our usual go-tos in the area.

Liliana
10060 City Walk Drive
Woodbury, MN 55129
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