It depends on how much time you have available to you. Making a big Italian dinner, complete with home made "wedding soup" and a home made "sunday sauce" and pasta isn't necessarily "hard", it just takes all day to cook. It's something I would definitely look forward to if someone was making it for me, since so often we have to settle for quick cooking meals, or even worse yet, pre-made stuff or fast food. The slow cooking has some advantages too, since it's very forgiving in terms of "overcooking" - it's kind of hard to accidentally over cook anything. So if your guest(s) are running a little late, it won't ruin everything.
If you are looking for something quicker, a Chicken Marsala or Chicken Picatta is an elegant and quick option. I wouldn't do this for a larger group since you would need a bunch of large pans and it would be tough to coordinate them all being cooked properly. But for one or two people, this is perfect. The only important step in the whole process is making sure you have everything prepped and ready to go before you start cooking, because it all comes together quickly. You cannot stop and go off and chop other ingredients for the next steps while it's cooking. Have your seasoned flour in a plate, your egg dip, your mushrooms and shallots sliced and diced respectively, your fresh parsley chopped, chilled butter on hand, your Marsala wine opened and breathing, plates to put the chicken on to rest while you cook the mushrooms, shallots and make the sauce, sea salt and pepper grinders on hand, a couple of sets of tongs, etc... These are great served with Yukon Gold mashed potatoes. You can make those in advance, and if you invest in a potato ricer, they will come out perfectly smooth with no lumps at all.
It's so simple to make but it looks and tastes so good. Our guests think I have slaved for hours over the stove but little do they know it was quick and easy !!!