We did this just last week on the Magic. As noted, everyone starts with the antipasti plate consisting of cured meats, olives, pickled artichokes, roasted red and yellow sweet peppers, and aged parmesan with balsamic. The others are dressed with your choice of olive oil flavored with rosemary, thyme, or red pepper. You can then choose from hot and cold appetizers, including soups and salads as well as typical Italian starters (I had a delicious seafood soup and DW had the arugula salad). Then there are pasta, fish, vegetarian, and meat choices available. Fish and meat are served with your typical starch and vegetable. If you are adventuresome, you could order a pasta course, a fish course, and a meat course, but it is probably more common to order only one or two of these. We usually ask for a small pasta or vegetarian selection as the "pasta" course (I had the mushroom risotto and DW had a serving of the portobello mushroom with polenta rather than a pasta course since she if gluten-intolerant; sometimes she has the scallops from the seafood selections at this point of the meal instead). This is followed by our entrees (I always have the rack of lamb and DW has the filet of beef). We have always ordered the chocolate souffle for dessert (they make a gluten-free version for DW), so I'm not even sure what the other dessert options might be. A small serving of lemon sorbet will appear before the entrees as a palate-cleanser and a small alcoholic (lemoncello) digestive is offered at the very end (only for me since DW doesn't drink alcohol).
In total, we had antipasti, soup/salad, pasta/portobello starter, entree, and dessert courses, so a total of five. The wine tasting pairing menu (an extra $59) has six courses, essentially including the pasta-seafood-meat triple play after appetizer and soup/salad and followed by dessert, but I've never been drawn to that option. We enjoy building a multi-course meal where we like all the selections (and the wine pairing would be wasted on DW).
Palo has a nice selection of wines available by the glass. Sometimes, I order two different wines to accompany early courses and my entree, but last week I went with a bottle of Italian red wine from the Piedmont region and had the remaining half-bottle sent on to our MDR to finish it the following evening.
