La Tegola Cucina Italiana restaurant located on the ground floor of the Foodland Building in Banilad, Cebu City, is one of the branches of La Tegola’s chain of restaurants in Cebu.

I have eaten dinner at La Tegola in Banilad on three separate occasions, when my former boss treated me and my former co-workers there. The Banilad branch is less than five minutes’ ride from our former office.

Each meal at La Tegola starts with separate plates of free appetizers of bruschetta and foccacia.  The bruschetta is a thin toasted bread rubbed with garlic and topped with tomatoes, olive oil, and salt.

The bruschetta is a bit crunchy, and its salty taste combined with tomatoes and herbs surely enlivened my taste buds just before the main meal. The foccacia is flat bread that you can eat as an appetizer or together with your pasta dish.

La Tegola offers several Italian pasta dishes, wines and desserts. In the three dinners I had at La Tegola, we had Italian red wine as our drink. La Tegola’s red wine is sweet and left an aftertaste in my mouth after a few glasses.

In each dinner I had at La Tegola , I had two to three glasses of red wine and it surely did not make me drunk but instead made me feel calm and relaxed. It also aided me in conversing with my companions and in enjoying my delicious meal.

My favorite pasta dish at La Tegola is the spaghetti alla carbonara. Its creamy, thick white sauce made it unique from the red tomato sauce of spaghetti dishes that I usually know of.

The carbonara at La Tegola is a mixture of cheese, egg yolks, bacon bits, black pepper, olive oil and thick white sauce that makes the dish rich, creamy and delicious. Toppings of basil and other herbs and tomatoes decorated on the side gives the carbonara a mouth-watering appearance.

A fulfilling dinner at La Tegola would not be complete without a sweet-tasting Italian dessert. My favorite dessert is the tiramisu, an Italian cake dipped in coffee, layered with a mixture of egg yolks, mascarpone and sugar, and topped with cocoa.

The combined coffee taste and sweetness of the Tiramisu is so fulfilling and satisfying even if the serving of the cake is not that big. The fullness I got in my stomach from eating the cake may have come from the double sweetness of the sugar and mascarpone, which is a triple-cream cheese.

Therefore, if you ever want the finest and affordable Italian cuisine in Cebu City, you should visit La Tegola in Banilad. You can take my word for it; you will surely get a satisfying meal that will make you come back to the restaurant.