Dish from the French, outwardly more Italian (5)
I believe the answer is:
pilau
'dish' is the definition.
(I know this)
'the french outwardly more italian' is the wordplay.
'the french' becomes 'la' ('the' in French).
'outwardly' means one lot of letters goes inside another (some letters go outside others).
'more italian' becomes 'piu' ('more' in Italian).
'la' going inside 'piu' is 'PILAU'.
'from' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for pilau that I've seen before include "Indian rice recipe" , "Eastern dish" , "spicy stuff" , "Rice cooked in seasoned broth" , "Spicy rice dish from the East" .)