For 50 years, Café Cortina has remained a local beacon of Northern Italian food. The restaurant has also racked up numerous Best of Detroit wins here at Hour Detroit and was the second in history to earn our Restaurant of the Year designation back in 2003. Now, more than two decades later, I returned to see what makes Café Cortina an essential destination after all these years.
It was 1976 when husband and wife Rina and Adriano Tonon first opened the doors to the enduring Café Cortina, a restaurant built on familial love, Italian pride, garden-fresh food, and impeccable service. It was named for Cortina d’Ampezzo, which lies in the Veneto region of Italy where Adriano was from, a zone known for its rustic and hearty inland dishes — and the location of many of this year’s Winter Olympic events.
