There’s a lot that competes for your attention when you enter Facci, the year-old Italian restaurant on the ground floor of the Inner Harbor high-rise, 414 Light Street.

There’s a lively bar, big enough to comfortably accommodate both people sipping a drink and those eating a full meal. Behind a glass partition, there’s a cook rolling homemade pasta, a not-so-subtle signal that you’re about to indulge in high quality, fresh dishes.

But truth be told, most people can’t take their eyes off Sophia Loren.

A giant photo of the then-young actress printed on wallpaper looms over the dining room, her red dress and décolletage impossible to miss. For the restaurant’s owner, Gino Palma, it’s a point of pride that she was born in the same city as him, Pozzuoli.

It was from there that Palma emigrated without his family to the U.S. at the age of 19—he had little money and no knowledge of English. He worked 15-to-17-hour days at Italian restaurants in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and eventually Maryland, doing everything from cleaning floors to washing dishes. Slowly, he began to work his way up the ladder.

Palma, 48, has come a long way. Last March he opened his third Facci. Like the others in Laurel and Ellicott City, the Baltimore location presents a lively, modern, approachable version of food from his—and Loren’s—homeland.

“Italian food is very simple,” he says. “You can eat Italian food every day. The main thing is great ingredients. We have the tomatoes and the mozzarella from Naples. You can do something so simple but so delicious that it’s unbelievable.”

Facci should be categorized as elevated dining, not fine dining. When we visited in December, we saw tourists, families with young kids, couples, and singles eating and drinking. We started with a Figgin Peachy, a refreshing combination of fig vodka, prosecco, peach purée, and fresh lime juice. We then moved on to a glass of the well-balanced sangria. With a list of 375 labels, wine is a major feature here as well.

Appetizers can be substantial and the stuffed eggplant we tried was no exception. Served piping hot with a blend of three cheeses, it was rich, fulfilling—and filling. The Aruguletta salad, which includes strawberries, sliced pears, roasted hazelnuts, and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano topped with a lemon aioli dressing, was fresh and crisp. It certainly was enough to share.

Pizzas and pastas are the primary focus of the menu. Pies cook for roughly 90 seconds in the wood-fired oven. We loved the Genova Pesto, a pesto-based pizza with grilled chick- en, roasted tomatoes, roasted pine nuts, and smoked mozzarella. (Gluten-free pizza and cauliflower crust are available as well.) The dough is terrific, and predictably the pizzas are best enjoyed right out of the restaurant’s oven.

A plate of Seafood Marbella was the most decadent dish we tried. Shrimp, scallops, and crab in a creamy Parmesan sauce mixed with fettuccine made for a tasty and heavy dinner. The Gnocchi Caprese was slightly disappointing. The potato dumplings were on the tough side, and the marinara sauce lacked pop. The classic dish of chicken marsala was executed perfectly, with a complex sauce and juicy chicken topped with mushrooms and onions. Comfort food at its core.

Palma takes great pride in not only his food (executive chef Nicola Morosini heads the three Facci kitchens) but also the design of his restaurants, which he does on his own. Here he had a large space to work with (the restaurant has a capacity of 160 and includes outdoor seating when the weather cooperates), thus the photo of Loren that stands approximately 15 feet high and 10 feet wide.

The name Facci comes from Palma’s wife, Pilar, who is from Peru. “She wanted to be able to communicate with my family, therefore began an intense Italian course,” the menu explains. “One day while practicing Italian with me, she said la tua facci but meant to say la tua faccia, Italian for your face. When I heard facci instead of faccia I started laughing and thought it was cute. Ever since that day I called her Facci.”

Today, nearly three decades after he left Italy, Palma has a wife of 24 years, two children and, now, three restaurants. He’s living the American dream.

“I’m a guy who came to America with no money, no family, no English,” he says. “I see all these people having fun; it makes me feel so good.”

FACCI: 414 Light St., Inner Harbor, 443-835- 2789. HOURS: Sun.-Thur. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers $16-27; salads $13-16; pastas $24-35; pizzas $20-23; entrees $28-46.

Some say a great meal starts with the eyes, which would be one explanation for the perpetual line in front of the display case at Di Pasquale’s in Highlandtown. A rainbow of colors bursts through the glass. Red grape tomatoes mixed with white balls of mozzarella and green basil leaves mirror the colors of the Italian flag. Bright purple octopus tentacles mingle with muted potatoes and fennel. Jet-black olives conjure visions of a moonless Tuscan night.

Others say it’s through the nose that a true epicurean experience begins, which could also explain that line. The aroma of focaccia bread baking at 600 degrees in the imported pizza oven fills the small dining area and narrow aisles with a scent so alluring it’s impossible to ignore. The rich smell of provolone and 30-month aged prosciutto seems to be ingrained in the walls, present even when the slicer isn’t running.

“You go in and it feels like Italy,” says Felicia Zannino-Baker, a Highlandtown art-gallery owner who has frequented the market and cafe all her life. “It smells like I’m in Italy. It sounds like I’m in Italy. It’s about all the senses.”

Ever since 23-year-old Luigi Di Pasquale opened a small corner store on Claremont Street in 1914, Di Pasquale’s has been a fixture in the neighborhood. But after a one-block move to Gough Street in 1988, its popularity exploded in the years following, and it has become much more.

For some, it’s a foodie destination for Italian classics such as eggplant Parm and pasta Bolognese, homemade pizza, and gourmet sandwiches you can hardly fit your mouth around. For others, it’s a spot where they can pop in to pick up fresh produce, bread, or a bottle of wine for dinner at home. And for still others, it’s a gathering place for locals to gossip, discuss sports and politics, or most of all, reminisce about the good old days.

In other words, it’s become an institution.

“I’m Italian, and coming here gives me a chance to express my ethnic heritage,” says retired Baltimore County Judge Lawrence Daniels (“In here, I’m Lorenzo Daniele,” he says in his best Old-World accent.) “I’m here with a lot of other like-minded people. Good friends, great people, great food. Joey’s the best.”

Joey is 61-year-old Joe Di Pasquale, the third-generation managing partner of the family-owned business. He’s a constant presence behind the counter, taking orders from customers, barking them out to employees, greeting newcomers as if they’re old-timers and old-timers as if they’re kin. He grew up in the business sweeping floors, stocking shelves, and delivering everything from beer nuts to beef jerky and pickled pigs’ feet to bars and houses in the area.

Since taking over the retail operation, he’s spearheaded its transition from neighborhood grocery and convenience store to culinary jewel. Now, he’s leading it through its biggest change yet: Di Pasquale’s is leaving Highlandtown.

Before you drop your cannoli, know that when it moves sometime after Easter, it’s going just 1.2 miles away, to a larger, newer space in Brewers Hill. Still, when the news broke last year, it felt like a seismic shift to those for whom the store is a part of everyday life.

“I can say with all my heart that I will miss them,” says 73-year-old Ida Longo, who’s been a regular since she arrived in Highlandtown from Italy a half-century ago. “I buy fresh bread and pasta and lunch meat. The mortadella is the best. It reminds me of when we were growing up in Italy. It has the same smell. Even if he’s going to move a little farther down the street, we are never going to leave Di Pasquale’s. We start with them and we die with them.”

How’s that for customer loyalty? Sabrina Di Pasquale, née Parravano, knows how Longo feels. She grew up in the neighborhood going to the original location before she fell for Joe and married him 29 years ago. She’s worked side by side with him—and his sisters, his brother, her sister, their children, the list goes on—for 33 years.

“At first, I didn’t think it was a very good idea,” she says of the move. “Not that we wouldn’t do well, but I didn’t want to leave the location. It has such wonderful memories. But I’m excited now. It’s not like the family is leaving Highlandtown. My son just bought a house in the neighborhood, my mom still lives in the neighborhood, my brother and sister still live in the neighborhood. We own property in the neighborhood. We’re still very connected to Highlandtown. We’re only a mile down the street. We’re not going to forget it.”

A painting of a serious-looking, older Luigi Di Pasquale hangs prominently in the Gough Street dining room. It’s almost as if he’s watching over his descendants, ensuring that they’re not screwing up what he started.

Joe never knew his grandfather, who passed away when Joe’s mother, Mary, was carrying him in 1959. But he’s heard the tales of his legendary work ethic and business acumen.

Luigi arrived in Highlandtown from Corropoli in the Abruzzo region of eastern Italy when he was 14. He was sponsored by a family with five children, so eight people lived in the rowhouse on Claremont Street. The bathroom was outside.

When he started the business, he sold chickens and goats that were tied up out front. He also made vats of bleach, which was commonly used for cleaning at the time. Joe’s father, Louis, (Luigi to his Italian friends), and his brothers, Carmen, Leo, Johnny, and Salvatore, were born into the business.

“Everyone had a part, whether you liked it or not,” Joe says. The same can be said of Joe and his five siblings, who grew up two doors down from the store on Claremont Street before the family moved to White Marsh in 1966.

“I remember working side by side with my father,” says Rob Di Pasquale, the youngest of the three boys. “I learned making change the old-fashioned way, [in] a cigar box. Before I could drive, I’d ride shotgun when we made deliveries to local restaurants to help unload the truck. Everything had to be done in a small family-owned business.”

Twenty-year-old Joe caught the family business bug while spending a summer in Italy. When he returned, he felt “more Italian than my parents” and helped convince his father that the business needed more space to grow. So, somewhat reluctantly, his dad moved it from the 3700 block of Claremont Street to the 3700 block of Gough Street. The new location, formerly a hardware store, offered more than five times the space.

Success was not instantaneous. The model they’d transported from the old location—selling household goods along with food—kept sales stagnant. Joe credits the financial support of his father and the family’s patience with helping the business survive leaner times.

“We built to fill every square inch. It was packed in here,” Joe says. “It was a slow grind at first. I remember when the front person would buzz us in the back when somebody came in. That’s how quiet it was. I got some advice from someone who said you cannot compete with the supermarkets, so get rid of the toilet paper and the dish detergent and focus on specialty foods. That was good advice.”

Was it ever. Joe began to search out vendors who offered top-notch products. He began importing more and more items directly from Italy, like olive oil and tomatoes. When he saw that people were trending away from cooking and instead searching for prepared foods, he began offering sandwiches and pasta salads for takeout or to eat at a lone table he set up.

“What started it all was the Real Italian,” Joe says of the salami, pepper ham, mortadella, capicola, and provolone sub that’s still one of Di Pasquale’s signature items. “We use the proper vegetables. We don’t use the wax tomatoes, we use good tomatoes. We use the red onion rather than just the cheap white onion. It’s one of those sandwiches where you crave it. It’s like a meat salad on bread with the dressing.”

By the mid to late ’90s, Di Pasquale’s popularity was soaring. It included a wholesale business, run by Rob, catering, and the retail operation. Joe decided to open a second store in a converted theater in Pikesville, which proved to be a disastrous decision. Just heating and cooling the space, with its 24-foot-ceilings, cost a fortune.

“It was a tough time,” he says. “I’m still feeling it. I got too big for my britches. It
almost destroyed me financially, and almost family-wise.”

Butting heads is inevitable in a family business, and it has happened more than once through the years to the Di Pasquales. Heated conversations, shouting matches, and the silent treatment have all broken out during disputes. But in the end, everyone knows that they have each other’s backs.

Davide Rossi has been the executive chef for the past seven years. A native of Milan, he says the family makes him feel like he’s one of them.

“Because it is family-owned, you are not a number here,” he says. “We all love each other very much. Joe can crack a joke with you, but he can yell at you if something goes wrong, and after two seconds, it’s like nothing happened.”

In 2008, Di Pasquale’s success reached new heights when Guy Fieri aired a segment from the store on his Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
“We were popular before locally, but that just brought it to the next ridiculous level,” Joe says. “We became a factory of making lasagna and mozzarella. We had lines out the door.”

In 1998, the business bought Mastellone Deli on Harford Road, and in 2017, Di Pasquale’s opened a second location in Harborview. This time, both outposts became successes. But those moves were minor compared to what’s coming next.

Walk through the aisles of Di Pasquale’s on any random day and you’re likely to see cans of scungilli and Cuoco seasoning on the shelves, collecting dust. The sliced conch from off the shores of Long Island and the seasoning for macaroni with sardines are two of Joe’s beloved worst sellers, products he treasures and refuses to stop carrying, their popularity be damned.

“I don’t care if there are 10 cans sitting there, I want it here for that time when someone wants one,” he says. “I’m going to search out products that are quality but unique.”

There’s no doubt that jars of Di Pasquale’s marinara sauce, containers of its frozen cioppino soup, and packages of its frozen ravioli—all homemade—attract loyal customers, but it’s the ready-to-eat wedges of lasagna, massive arancini balls, and packed subs that keep them coming back.

The Old World Italian sub has soppressata, dry cured capicola, prosciutto, fontinella, tomato, and an olive spread. The Santino features prosciutto and a hunk of mozzarella made in-house daily. Di Pasquale’s take on American favorites like the cheesesteak are also wildly popular, as is the almost impossibly huge meatball sub, served in a half-loaf of rustic bread baked in the back. “Be prepared,” the menu warns. You never fully are.

The kitchen is headed by Sabrina, her sister, Mariagrazia, and Rossi, along with cook/baker Sadetta Hozic. They all contribute their own ideas and recipes, among them Sabrina’s popular Tuscan chili and the baked ziti she made for her kids when they were young.

It’s the popularity of all these items that has made staying in the current building untenable, Joe says. Lines often snake throughout the store, making social distancing in this age of COVID difficult. (“We’re fortunate,” Joe says of business during the pandemic. “A lot of restaurants, their food doesn’t travel well, but a meatball sub does. We’re down about 30 percent, but we’ve adjusted and we’re keeping everybody employed.”)

He began thinking about moving roughly two years ago.

“The infrastructure is not in this building for this kind of business,” Joe says. “The drainage, the electricity. The roof with all the equipment is like a war zone up there. The parking situation has become challenging.”

When they relocate from 3700 Gough Street to (the coincidentally numbered) 3700 Toone Street, they’ll be moving into a modern, larger space on the ground level of The Porter apartment building that has much more parking and ample room for indoor and outdoor seating. (The space previously housed Ceriello Fine Foods.)

The old building isn’t going anywhere; the Di Pasquales are keeping it for storage and one day may even open a coffee shop or bakery there, Joe says.

“I’m going to keep the ties to here as much as I can,” he says. “I’m going to run a shuttle system for the Italian ladies who walk here. I’m going to try delivery for them. I’m going to keep the [Highlandtown] wine festival and do everything I can.”

Julia Snyder, a Highlandtown native, is perhaps the one lifelong customer who’s not bummed about the move. She lives in The Porter.

“When they get here, I’ll be in my glory,” she says. “I’m on the fourth floor, and I’m getting a dumbwaiter to bring his food up.”

Much of the new space is being designed by the Di Pasquales’ 26-year-old son, Domenico. Although he’s the only one of their four children who works in the business full-time, all of the kids play a role. Marcella, 28, helps with staffing from her home in Southern California. Ivana, 22, is in college, but is instrumental in the apparel shipping business (yes, there are Di Pasquale’s T-shirts and caps), and plans to play a role in expanded shipping of food at the new location. Luigi, 16, helps pick up local produce.

“It’s going to be just like the old store, except more modern,” Domenico says. “There’s going to be high ceilings, a lot of lighting, open space, and it’s going to be more organized than it is right now in terms of ordering and standing in line.”

On a Wednesday in late January, the move still feels like the distant future to Joe, whose focus is squarely on the lunch rush. Cosimo Savino and his 87-year-old father, Bruno, are two of the first customers. Both men were born in Naples and have been coming to Di Pasquale’s since they arrived in America. Bruno, who speaks Italian, often enjoys a morning espresso with Joe.

“They can move anywhere, and I would follow them,” Cosimo says. “There is nobody that can do what they do.”

Later, a couple from Pennsylvania, in the store for the first time, approaches the counter and asks Joe for a sandwich recommendation. “Hot or cold?” he replies in his typical workman-like manner. “Hot.”

After pondering the question for a second, he suggests the Porchetta, a sub with Italian seasoned roast pork, provolone, sautéed onions, olive oil, and grated cheese. After eating it, the newcomers understand what the fuss is about.

Next in line is Adam Ostovitz, who moved to a house around the corner six years ago. He says he comes to Di Pasquale’s “too often.” This Wednesday is his third trip this week.

“It’s a little disappointing that they’re moving, but our loss is another neighborhood’s gain,” he says. “It’s not like they’re going away forever. It’s just a little bit farther. I’m happy to see them growing and serving more people. More power to them. What are you going to do?”

As he shrugs his shoulders, it is clear this is a rhetorical question. For Di Pasquale’s lovers everywhere, there’s only one thing they can do: Keep eating.

The year 2020 is one we’d all like to forget. Wouldn’t it be a kick to have a do-over? Two-thousand years ago, March 1 was designated as New Year’s Day on the early Roman calendar because March was considered the first month of the year. Let’s celebrate the ancient new year with these Italianate delectables.

Barone Pizzini Franciacorta “Animante” NV
($40, Winebow)

In the 19th century, the Barone Pizzini family endeavored to make a sparkling wine to rival the best of France’s Champagne region. They planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir just like the French and made the wines exactly as they are made in Champagne, but with more age. The result, then as now, is a decadent bubbly with all the finesse of a fine Champagne, just with an Italian signature. Sure, it’s good for toasts, but also pairs well with creamy sauces, cheeses, and, of course, caviar.

Birra Dolomiti Pils
($15 six-pack, Constantine)

Nestled in the foothills of the Italian Alps, Birra Dolomiti brews up a crisp, flavorful Pilsner in the same time-honored manner that was popular when the region was still part of the Austrian Hapsburg Empire. Ideal for all kinds of reveling, it is also delicious with grilled sausages and caramelized onion.

Antica Torino Sweet Vermouth
($33, Free Run Wine Merchant)

If you like a good Manhattan, you’re going to love this Vermouth. Rather than chase a homogenous, international style of Vermouth, Antica Torino chose to focus on ingredients common in their home region of Piedmont in Italy. Rosemary, gentian, bay laurel, thyme, and other aromatics are blended with the base wine and burnt cane sugar to forge this sophisticated Vermouth that’s delightful on ice and masterful in a cocktail.

From pepperoni pizza to garlic bread and chicken Parm, most of what we consider iconic Italian food in the United States is more of a construct created for Americans than something you’d actually find in Italy. In fact, Italian cuisine has become so popular and ubiquitous in the U.S., it’s almost as American as apple pie. Rare is the restaurant that actually feels like it holds an Italian passport.

Enter Limoncello, located on the first floor of Anthem House in Locust Point, with a sister spot in St. Michael’s. This southern Italian restaurant focuses on the cuisine from the Campania region, where its three owners have their roots. And the general manager (and chef’s first cousin) Vincenzo Schiano, who also hails from the region, likes to joke that, having recently moved to America, he “just got off the boat and still has salt on his skin.”

But while the restaurant itself arrived only a few months back, thanks to polished service and perfectly executed plates, it feels incredibly established. Of course, it helps that this is chef-owner Gennaro DiBenedetto’s 10th restaurant (others include Bacco Italian+Wine Bar in Abingdon and Rockfish Grille in Chestertown). “I want this to be the best, my legacy,” says DiBenedetto.

To that end, Limoncello is all about insistence on authenticity and a celebration of an agriculturally rich region whose waiters teem with an astounding array of fish and shellfish. “No corners are cut,” explains Schiano. “If we can’t make it, we import it from Italy.”

This means that delicious aged mozzarella di buffala, known as “white gold,” is air-shipped daily from Campania. Ditto the prosciutto di Parma for the paninis and mortadella ground into the meatballs. Even the boxed Barilla pasta, while available locally, is shipped from Italy, because it’s better than what you can buy stateside and, with its higher starch content, ensures the sauce sticks to the noodles. The authenticity also means that the namesake liqueur is made with whole-grain alcohol (not vodka as it is with the Americanized version), which allows the citrus to shine.

Full disclosure: As a critic, I waiver between ordering what I want and what I think I should get. But with a menu focused on two of my favorite foods—fresh seafood and pasta—I can, quite happily, do both at the same time here.

On my first visit, a busy Saturday night in November, my dining companion and I ordered a lineup of terrific appetizers from Italy’s version of comfort food, thin slices of fried baby eggplant in ragù with mozzarella, as well as an order of the marvelous meatballs made with kobe beef, mortadella, and ground pistachios. My favorite dish of the night was a luscious pesce al brodetto (fish stew), chock full of clams, calamari, head-on shrimp, scallops, and fish swimming in a soupy saffron bisque that offered great fishy flavor.

Similarly, the head-on branzino, dressed with salt, pepper, and a splash of oil, was a paragon of the less-is-more style of Italian cooking. It was served with lovely fingerling potatoes, a tomato, and escarole salad. A pungent olive oil, lemon, and garlic sauce for drizzling was served on the side. With both dishes, though not for the squeamish, I was impressed that the fish and shrimp were served with the head on—and, yes, that was me chowing down on a shrimp head. That’s really where you find the flavor.

The meatball appetizer.

A craft cocktail.

A second visit was similarly successful, though there were minor missteps. The bread, made in-house daily, was somewhat stale, and the Sicilian-inspired arugula salad with fennel and blood orange accidentally arrived undressed and a bit wilted. That said, when we asked for “more” dressing, our server delivered it promptly.

Despite the slow start, we took our server’s advice and ordered her favorite dish, the pappardelle zafferano, fat ribbons of house-made pasta bathed in a golden yellow saffron cream sauce and topped with a tangle of shrimp, scallops, and lump crabmeat. It did not disappoint. The addition of saffron lent a floral note and accentuated the sweetness of the shellfish.

We also enjoyed the grigliata di mare, grilled seafood including whole calamari, head-on shrimp, chargrilled octopus, and swordfish, with the same olive oil, garlic and lemon sauce served on the side that was paired with the branzino. Again, the simple preparation of of this dish and its high-quality ingredients made for a perfect example of letting the seafood stand on its own.

Beyond the food, the yellow and blue décor, echoing sun and cerulean sky, a lemon tree, lettered lights spelling out “Ciao,” and driftwood mounted to the wall are an attempt to invoke Italy’s coastal region. Okay, so the Patapsco isn’t exactly the Mediterranean, but once you eat that first tender tentacle of charred octopus, you could be convinced. “Our goal,” says Schiano, is “to express ourselves through our food.”

Mission accomplished.

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LIMONCELLO 900 East Fort Ave., 443-708-1540. HOURS: Lunch and weekend brunch 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner: Mon.-Thur. 4-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 4-11 p.m., Sun. 4-10 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $12-22; entrees: $10-39. AMBIANCE: Italian coastal.

Elan Kotz helped open The Food Market in 2012 but has been out of the business of running a restaurant for about four years now. Kotz took a break from the industry to develop a travel/dining app, but he’s more than happy to be back in the thick of things with his new spot, Orto, in Station North.

“I didn’t realize how much I really missed it,” he says. “Being back in the business has been awesome. There are some voids in the market—just because we’re in Baltimore doesn’t mean that people don’t love to eat good food.”

We got a chance to talk to Kotz about his new restaurant venture, its early success, and the impact he hopes Orto has on the neighborhood.

How did Orto come to occupy the Bottega/Colette space near The Charles Theatre? I know that you were friends with the owner Adrien Aeschliman.
Adrien brought me in to consult on a few things. He was moving to Cleveland where his wife is from and had gotten a job and his plan was to fly back and forth while running Bottega. After exploring that for a bit, he decided to pursue other opportunities in Cleveland.

Did you think about keeping it as Bottega?
We wanted to do full branding and a full concept—I didn’t want to pick up anyone’s dirty laundry. So we changed the name and the menu, though not the whole concept. It’s still Italian inspired. I do think that there’s a big void for approachable, Italian-inspired fare. We also kept as many of the employees as possible. The chef, Stefano Porcile, was the chef at little Bottega, as we call it, when it was on Maryland Avenue.

What was your menu mission?
We wanted to reinvent the space and the menu. We didn’t lean to Bottega for anything other than the fact that they were one of the restaurants in the city doing delicious homemade pastas. With Orto, meaning vegetable garden, I wanted to move to the lighter side of Italian cooking and highlight delicious fresh ingredients prepared simply—that to me is what Italian cooking is all about. As the season changes and produce starts hitting and farmers bring in delicious proteins, we will focus more on that the vegetable side of things, the lighter side of things.

What did you decide to do with the décor?

The main goal was to lighten the space, more from a color palette than a lighting perspective. Bottega was really dark. I like the coziness of dim lights and candles. In Bottega, in the salon area near the bar, the bottom half of the walls was high gloss black and above the chair rail was a darker green—that made that whole space feel really tight. We changed it to a warm green on the bottom and added a plaster treatment on the top to make the space feel young and fresh with a focus on natural materials all inside a 100-year-old building.

Any other aesthetic changes?

The most important design aspect for me is that I lowered the bar and changed it from being a standing bar to a bar where people can sit and have a meal. I personally love to eat at a bar—you can have the same meal in the same space. You can come in and have something small or have a three-course meal at the bar.

Speaking of the bar, you just got your liquor license. Tell me about your bar program.

The wine program will be very much Italian with New World stuff, not only Italian wine, but value-driven wine that will pair beautifully with our menu—whites, reds, bubbles by the glass and bottle. We are also going to offer a tight beer program of four drafts, most notably Peroni on draft and local beers and ciders, as well a cocktail program that we are still developing. We have Lindsay Crisler, who is very talented when comes to bar programing. Lindsay worked at Woodberry Kitchen for a while. She is focused on utilizing local ingredients and herbs, as well as homemade tinctures and syrups. We will have some riffs on classic cocktails. We are trying to have delicious cocktails that add to the entire dining experience and are developing digestivos and amaros for dessert.

How did you come up with the name Orto?

I knew that I wanted to focus on the lighter side of Italian cooking. I have a cousin who lives in Milan. For a time, we thought it should it be a woman’s name—we were looking at Leila or Lily—or someone’s name so that it has that homey feel. I went back and forth on it and the name may have actually come from Lindsay. I like the ring of it. It’s short and memorable. When I found out the meaning, I loved the story that it could tell for the restaurant.

Any other upcoming plans as you evolve?

We will be adding a brunch in the near future and we will also be doing some cool programming for happy hour and late night.

One month in and the line is already out the door.

We are so grateful—the response has been phenomenal. It’s interesting to say that we have regulars when we’re not even open for a month, but we do. I think it’s a testament to a cozy space that doesn’t take itself too seriously—you can come in tonight and have an arugula salad or mussels and come in and do three or four courses and a bottle of Brunello.

What can be done to improve the scene?

The people in Baltimore really do love good food and want to support it, but it’s hard because a lot of diners are coming in from the county on the weekends. The city has had a tough run over the past few years and scared people off. Along with that, some operators have been apprehensive, asking themselves, ‘Is this the right location?’ It’s a big undertaking and putting a lot on the line.

People need to continue to invest in certain neighborhoods. Some people love Hampden or Butchers Hill or where have you. It’s important to have more mass—I love that we’re next to Tapas Teatro and Penn & Quill, to have that synergy is really special. We have a really strong culture here [in Station North]. Will and Rosemary at Le Comptoir du Vin recently went on vacation for a week and put a sign on the door of their restaurant, which is around the block, telling everyone to come here.

First things first: there really is a disco ball hanging from the ceiling at Italian Disco, the Atlas Restaurant Group’s latest eatery in its burgeoning Harbor East empire. When we visited in the fall, it started rotating around 8 p.m., adding an extra dash of funk to the festivities. Not that it was needed—we were already having, well, a ball.

Housed in the former home of Bagby Pizza, which felt like a take-out joint, Italian Disco exudes a much more happening vibe than its predecessor. A long bar with circular stools lines one wall; high-top tables and conventional ones fill out the space. Looming above it all is the back half of a vintage Fiat that doubles as a DJ booth on weekends. We loved the classic rock playing on our weeknight visit—Italian Disco is actually a genre of music that originated in Italy in the late ’70s.

Our meal began inauspiciously. The restaurant opened in May, and the service is still rough around the edges. Our waitress didn’t know the answer to several of our questions about the menu and was oddly hesitant to ask the bar or kitchen for answers. We started with fine but unremarkable cocktails, forgettable complementary breadsticks, and an order of fried olives that were far too bready. We barely touched the appetizers (we finished the drinks, of course), which turned out to be a good thing, because everything that followed was fantastic.

Three large turkey meatballs doused in marinara sauce, Parmesan, and basil were beautifully flavored and impressively moist. The sausage and peppers sandwich, while not as spicy as we would have liked, was accompanied by a fistful of terrific fries prepared in peanut oil. A plate of penne pasta, made in-house, was topped with tender blackened chicken in a subtle red sauce that included peas. It was rich, but not overpoweringly so.

But all that served merely as a precursor. The pizza oven is visible from the back, and in it, chef Julian Marucci, whom Italian Disco shares with its across-the-courtyard sister restaurant, Tagliata, produces some of the best pies in the city. Most of the 12-inch varieties cost $14-19 and are worth the dough. The toppings on the Carbonara—bacon, leeks, soft egg, black pepper, and pecorino—were delicious, but the crust was the real star. Thin and impossibly crispy, yet not over-charred, we delighted in each crunchy bite.

Strangely, our second pizza had not emerged from the kitchen by the time we’d finished with our first. It had been burned, our server explained, and another was being prepared. (I applaud this honest approach to an honest mistake.) By then we were already quite full, so there was no panic at the disco.

When the white anchovy pie arrived, we immediately knew it was worth the wait. Devouring a slice of this masterful melding of fragrant fish, peppers, olives, and oregano was a lot like Italian Disco itself: a blast (from the past).

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Italian Disco 1006 Fleet St., 410-605-0444. HOURS: Sun.-Wed. 11 a.m.-midnight; Thur.-Sat. 11 a.m.-2 a.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $4-19; salads: $11-18; sandwiches: $11-19; entrees: $14-25; pizza: $14-28. AMBIANCE: Upbeat.

It feels funny to describe a restaurant that has been in business since 1999 as “off the eaten path,” but that’s exactly what Vinny’s Italian Café is. A five-minute drive east from the edge of Canton is all it takes to get you there, but you might as well be a world, not a neighborhood, away. Auto-body shops on the industrial drive that is Holabird Avenue surround the white, L-shaped building with red ceramic shingles that owner Vinny Scotto helped build.

Inside, you’re greeted by a warm staff and the smell of simple, rich, traditional Italian food. “Everything is as good as it was 19 years ago,” says our waitress, Paula, who has worked at this hidden gem since it opened. “You’re in for a treat.”

On an early Saturday evening, with sporting events on a pair of TVs behind the bar of a large, open-concept dining room, our party of four settles into a booth in the unpretentious atmosphere of what locals call “the heart of Dundalk,” the historically blue-collar suburb. Families surround tables. A woman’s 28th birthday party is happening in the other room. Regular customers, like descendants of those who worked in Baltimore’s since-closed General Motors factory, order from the take-out counter, too.

Fresh pizza bread arrives on our table, then Paula is back, and we consult with her for recommendations from a menu that counts 75 dinner choices (and more for lunch, such as their trademark meatball sub, which dates back to the restaurant’s precursor, Marco’s).

We order a bottle of red, then Blue Point oysters and fried calamari for the table. Specials are typically imagined by Vinny, an Italian immigrant by way of Naples and New York, and his sons Marcello and Tony, who spent four years studying at the Culinary Institute of America. I decided on the rockfish Chesapeake with a fresh handmade spinach pasta.

My wife, who has celiac disease, enjoyed a gluten-free version of the chicken broccoli, a simple dish—chicken cooked in a rose cream sauce, tomato, garlic, olive oil, basil, and parsley, served over a bed of pasta (made with corn and rice flour, in her case) with broccoli—that is the restaurant’s top seller. Our guests went with more traditional choices, including the veal parmigiana and chicken marsala.

The portions are huge. This is one of those places where it looks like you didn’t make a dent in your food after 20 minutes of eating—and you don’t mind. Ingredients, like sweet, natural San Marzano tomatoes grown from the volcanic soil in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, are fresh. And you’re full and happy to have leftovers for tomorrow.

“The best thing is to use the right thing, you know?” Vinny says. “If I can buy something good, and it costs me a little more money, that’s okay. I’m looking to make people happy. Today, you don’t find a place like this anymore.”

That is, unless you know where to look.

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›› VINNY’S ITALIAN CAFÉ 6212 Holabird Ave., 410-633-7709. Tues.-Thurs. 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Before becoming a restaurateur, Alex Smith was a lax star who broke multiple National Collegiate Athletic Association records as a face-off specialist and captain of the University of Delaware Blue Hens lacrosse team. Now, as founder and president of Atlas Restaurant Group, the 33-year-old former Chesapeake Bayhawk has shown the same determination in tackling the culinary world. 

Clearly, Smith, who has a knack for opening instant hot spots faster than the speed of a lacrosse ball, has a keen understanding of how to compete successfully in the fierce world of running restaurants. In the past two years alone, he has opened Tagliata, The Elk Room, Loch Bar in Harbor East, and a second Ouzo Bay in Boca Raton; his Loch Bar Boca and a new project, The Bygone in Four Seasons Baltimore, are set to open any day now. With Tagliata, his latest venture in the 21202, Smith has demonstrated that he’s come a long way since his freshman season when he opened his first spot, a Harbor East Häagen-Dazs franchise. 

New restaurants, like fine wine, typically need time to breathe and blossom. But the 140-plus seat Italian chophouse (pronounced “tal-e-ata”), open since August in the former Fleet Street Kitchen space, already feels like a local institution. Dine here if you value impeccable service (rarely the hallmark of any new spot), fabulous food, and a glorious setting, including a piano bar, nightly live music, and some of the best alfresco seating in town.

With linen, velvet, wicker, and wood touches, Tagliata, which means sliced meat in Italian, feels like a sophisticated supper club. And success has come straight out of its black wrought-iron gate because Smith has assembled an A-team of veterans: executive chef and partner Julian Marucci, managing partner David Goodman, and sommelier John Kelley all trained across the street at Cinghiale; chef de cuisine Michael Correll is a holdover from Fleet Street Kitchen. Smith’s brother, Eric, is a partner and also on hand to help oversee the Atlas beverage program, including the 1,000-plus label wine program, purported to be the biggest in the state.

The oversized menu features neo-Italian interpretations such as lasagna with rabbit ragu and bruschetta with duck confit, plus an assortment of house-made charcuteries, steaks and chops, house-made pastas, and crudi. Though they’re hidden at the bottom of the menu, the holy trinity of Italian classics (chicken Parm, tagliatelle Bolognese, veal saltimbocca) are among the very best items to order. Across several visits, we sampled the better part of the menu, where Marucci’s passion for precision is evident in almost every dish. The eggplant Parmigiana was pure comfort food nestled in a blanket of top-flight ingredients, including house-made mozzarella, a stellar tomato sauce, and a crispy crust of eggs, breadcrumbs, and Parmesan cheese still bubbling over the sides when it arrived at our table. While intended as an entrée, it’s also great as a shareable appetizer.

Equally enjoyable was an appetizer of light-as-a-cloud meatballs accompanied by a dollop of whipped ricotta. A Caprese salad with mozzarella and just-off-the-vine heirloom tomatoes felt like a fitting farewell to the end of summer. As for entrees, the chicken marsala, featuring hen-of-the-woods, oyster and porcini mushrooms, aces every ingredient and is something to write home about, especially so when you use the Cunningham Farms focaccia to sop up the sauce.

House-made pastas are also memorable. First and foremost was a dish of ramp spaghetti and clams (cockles, manila and razor) that was beautifully briny and pungent, thanks to the garlicky flavor of the wild onions. Also of note is the visually striking squid ink campanelle with sea-urchin cream sauce and fat clumps of Eastern Shore crabmeat. This decadent dish, a study in umami, really is as good as it looks. If you want to continue your visit to the sea, move on to the seafood stew, studded with mussels, clams, rings of octopus, several shrimp, and a hunk of bronzino. This dish was inspired by Marucci’s honeymoon trip to Ravello years ago and clearly comes from the heart. Additonally, options abound for the meat lover at the table. Ours ordered the beef tenderloin, a hand-cut filet that was melt-in-your-mouth divine and came with a choice of several sauces.

As with any dining experience, it’s the little moments that matter, like the basket of aged Parm brought to the table at the top of the meal. (Feel no shame asking for more. On one visit, our mobile cheese monger made three trips to the table to shave shards from his 88-pound aged wheel.) Service hit all the high notes—from the well-versed staff able to explicate with clarity and confidence, to the changing of cutlery between courses, to a swift replacement round of napkins when one of my dining partners dropped his on the floor. With restaurant openings, as with many things in life, practice makes perfect. 

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TAGLIATA 1012 Fleet St., 410-244-5830. HOURS Sun.-Thurs. 4-10 p.m., Fri. 4 p.m.-12 a.m., Sat. 6 p.m.-12 a.m. PRICES Soups/salads/crudi/appetizers: $9-24; pastas: $18-48; steaks/chops: $34-125; entrees: $19-48; desserts: $9. AMBIANCE Italian idyll.

It’s tough to get simple Italian food right in the restaurant world, a sad fact any paisan with a jones for mamma’s cooking will confirm. But when a restaurateur knows what he or she is doing, there’s nothing quite so satisfying, so comforting, so positively nostalgia-laden as a good trattoria—or, as the case may be, enoteca (which means “wine repository”).

Sam Curreri has been doing it right at Sammy’s Trattoria in Mount Vernon for 10 years, and now he’s opened a sister restaurant, er, enoteca, in Fells Point. Good news, Italophiles. His second joint, which opened in spring 2016, is the real deal, slightly more casual than the flagship but firmly rooted in the same culinary tradition: food that is unfussy and absolutely redolent of good homemade red sauce. First, let me tell you about the meatballs.

“Veal/Pork/Beef/Gorgonzola” reads the list of ingredients. These soft bombs yield easily to the fork and melt in the mouth, and they’re probably the best I’ve tasted in Baltimore. On offer as an antipasto, they’re topped lightly with tomato sauce and come three on a plate for six bucks. For the same price, you can get a ridiculously hearty bowl of creamy risotto. We tried the basil-spiked version sprinkled with pine nuts. Another winner was the burrata Caprese salad, with its massive ball of burrata sitting atop bright cherry tomatoes and arugula. Spread the cheese over the delightful slices of grilled Italian bread that arrive at the table as soon as you sit down, and that’s a meal.

Those with bigger appetites will have a hard time choosing from the list of 15 pastas—from classic carbonara to squid ink tagliatelle fra diavolo. I picked the Love Letters, a variation on Mario Batali’s homemade ravioli stuffed with mint and Parmigiano-Reggiano, here sauced with pomodoro, sausage, and mint ragù. Heavenly.

My friend, Sara, chose homemade gnocchi topped with a bolognese of boar, pork, and veal, which, upon sampling, made me vow to try every pasta on the menu. But on another visit, I opted to be prudent and ordered a beautiful fish—the red snapper francese, dusted with flour and enrobed in a lemon, white wine, and capers sauce. A chicken Calabrese was an even heartier version of cacciatora, piled with potatoes, sausage, peppers, onions, and tomatoes.

Being an enoteca, this Sammy’s has a compact but exemplary all-Italian wine list, packed with good values and available by the glass in 3- and 6-ounce pours. Our server guided us toward a lovely Puglian Primativo, but there are at least a dozen similar gems in the $30 range. Desserts, too, are really good. Even the de rigueur but often-tired tiramisù was creamy and fresh. If we had a complaint, it’s that the digs are a tad stark. But that would never stop us from coming back to Sam Curreri’s second venture. Oh, and did we mention the flatbread pizza?

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SAMMY’S ENOTECA 623 S. Broadway, 443-552-1002.
HOURS Sun.-Thu. 4:30-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 4:30-11 p.m.
CUISINE Italian. PRICES Appetizers: $6-12; entrees: $14-22; desserts: $6.
ATMOSPHERE No-frills.

As devoted fans of both Fork & Wrench and Salt, we were delighted and intrigued to hear that Brian Lavin—former executive chef at both venues—had opened up his own shop in a snug corner row house in Brewers Hill. Lavin’s cooking features subtle but oft-surprising combinations, like a fondly remembered sweet-and-sour date purée and tzatziki pairing devised to accompany an oven-roasted duck at Salt.

We wondered if that sensibility would translate to this new venture’s menu, which features a narrower range of Italian and Spanish flavors on display in a roster of mostly small plates and pastas. And we wondered, too, if the challenge of running his own kitchen would blunt his talents. Happily, Lavin seems more than up to the task. On the outside, Gnocco looks like your typical neighborhood haunt, but on the inside, Lavin is serving up some of the most inventive cuisine around.

Food takes pride of place here. The rustic simplicity of the environs—repurposed wood, fresh flowers, dark colors—seems designed to provide a quiet backdrop to plates that are often spectacular in their colorful artistry. There’s a bar on one side, a small dining room on the other. We love that there’s Prosecco on tap, Italian aperitivo and digestivo, a well-curated wine list, and some beautiful craft cocktails on offer (try the Negroni Sfumato with smoked rhubarb amaro). And we love the thoughtful, attentive service. But the noise level? Not so much. When the place gets crowded—and as word spreads, this is increasingly the case—it’s deafening, the single glitch in our overall experience. But focus on the food and you’ll soon forget that you have to shout to convey how fabulous it is.

This is especially true of the ever changing roster of nine or 10 small plates, each one a gem of execution. A succulent mound of lobster salad floats over cool cucumber soup dotted with tarragon. Pale, silky scallop crudo gets color and spark from bright bites of tomato escabèche and basil. Grilled head-on shrimp, draped over romesco sauce and showered with bits of crispy garlic, melds beautifully with creamy roasted leeks.

On our first visit, we especially loved the grilled octopus. You wouldn’t think there’d be much you could do to make octopus look pretty, but Lavin manages it. The tentacles (nicely charred on the outside, tender on the inside) sat atop a salad composed of contrasting pale and bright green fennel and arugula, a circle of deep purple grapes echoing the cephalopod’s faintly violet hue. It’s typical of the great care that goes into plating here, a thoughtful approach that doubles your dining pleasure. The dish had disappeared from the menu by our next visit, but we happily discovered a new seafood favorite: crispy polenta-crusted oysters beside a pool of green goddess dressing.

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Veal Sweetbreads
Nestled on a bed of grilled green onions, lightly breaded veal sweetbreads reveal a creamy richness beneath their crisp coating. They sit atop a purée of roasted corn that brings out the “sweet” in the sweetbread and underscores their delicate flavor.

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Three small pasta dishes round out the trove of small plates. One night, delicate thyme tagliatelle with chanterelles and sweet corn made us swoon. A little later in the summer, a heartier squid ink gnocchi with tomato-braised calamari and mint had us slowly tasting to discern the way each element complemented the others. We admit we’ve been so captivated by the smaller dishes that we’ve only tried one of the two entrees on offer—a sweet-fleshed, whole, grilled red snapper garnished with snap peas and pickled onions.

We only tried one dessert: warm ricotta doughnuts glazed with fennel honey and served with ginger ice cream. These made my dinner partner clap her hands with childlike glee.

Next time, maybe we’ll eat nothing but entrees and desserts. And rest assured, there will be a next time. There’s a braised wild boar shoulder in chickpea stew we’d love to catch when it’s available, and a yummy sounding chocolate panna cotta with blueberry jam that we hope will stay on the dessert menu. We’re dreaming of Lavin’s way with autumn’s bounty already.

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GNOCCO 3734 Fleet St., 443-449-6540. HOURS Tue.-Thu. 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 5-11 p.m.; Sun. 10:30 a.m.- 3 p.m., 5-9 p.m. CUISINE Mediterranean.
PRICES Appetizers and small plates: $9.95-18.95; pastas and entrees: $16.50-25.95; desserts: $8-19. ATMOSPHERE Rustic.

Simplicity has its charms, and sometimes the weary restaurant reviewer, having gorged for months on fine and fancy foods, wants nothing more than to succumb to simple pleasures. At such times, I crave a place where there are no wildly inventive dishes or highly touted exotica on the menu, no hipster digs lined with gleaming surfaces or baroque décor, and where there’s no need to care whether I’m wearing the right brand of jeans. The food is straightforward and good in my fantasy restaurant, and so is the waitstaff. It happens to feature the cuisine of my childhood—say, the kind you’d find in an Italian kitchen—and tastes like grandma’s, i.e., mine. And, as long as I’m dreaming, this down-home trattoria also offers, without much fanfare, one of the best Italian wine lists in the region.

CuVino happens to be just that kind of place. The only problem is, it’s in Timonium and not in my neighborhood—but, hey, that’s what cars and cheap gas are for. Tucked away in a suburban strip mall, where one often discovers such off-the-beaten-path gems, the restaurant previously housed a doctor’s office, all traces of which have been banished by owners Angelo and Ralph DiBiasi.

The space has been transformed into a bright and cheerful homespun place with tiles on the floor and brick-red tabletops—a bit noisy in the front by the bar, a little cozier and quieter in the back, where booths and tables host families and first-daters. A wall of wine racks holding bottles from every region of Italy—from Alto Adige to Sardinia—announces that the trattoria is also a wine store.

The brothers DiBiasi have modeled their menu on the stuff Italian-American families put on the table when they gather for traditional Sunday dinner: plates of eggplant Parmigiana and lasagna, veal saltimbocca, and homemade gnocchi with peas.

The menu has been modeled after the stuff Italian-Americans put on the table when they gather for Sunday dinner.

It all sounds very standard-issue, but the tastes are vivid and well executed in a way that gives credence to that highly overused word, authentic. Take, for example, CuVino’s simple bowl of grilled calamari, whose tendrils of toothsome squid are perfectly cooked, doused in sea salt and good olive oil, and showered with capers. It’s an unfussy approach that carries over to other antipasti, like the humble, yet hearty, bruschetta—nothing but slices of sweet, fresh tomatoes, and fresh ricotta on a sturdy homemade slab of rustic Italian bread—or a plate of lightly fried, crisp potato croquettes stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto.

The entrees are similarly basic and beautiful. A long slide of lasagna is composed of nothing but a dense meat sauce nestled between sheets of house-made translucent pasta smothered in lots and lots of melting cheese. The Bolognese clinging to a mound of bucatini is precisely as it should be—rich with meat, a touch of cream, and just the right amount of tomato.

You know you’ve found a truly decent Italian-American place when the chef refuses to commit the near-ubiquitous sins of so many red-sauce joints: too much sauce on the pasta and too much sugary tomato paste in the sauce. Here, the marinara is made with bright red cherry tomatoes, and the linguini with white-clam sauce comes dotted with juicy specimens in the shell. The meatballs are soft, pillowy orbs that melt in the mouth. No shortcuts, no cans. My absolute favorite? The “Autunno” rigatoni laced with homemade ground Italian sausage, wild mushrooms, and thyme in a prosecco-based wine sauce.

Plenty of customers are coming in just to grab a pizza and a bottle of wine to go, but it’s not a bad idea to simply hunker down with a large pie—there are thin-crust New York-style pizzas and thick-crusted Sicilian ones—and concentrate on that deeply impressive roster of wines. A shrimp limoncello thin-crust pizza spiked with lemon zest, garlic, and spinach went beautifully with an austere Vernaccia di San Gimignano, one of about 30 choices on CuVino’s $25 list. That’s the tip of the proverbial iceberg—if you’ve ever had a notion to master the complexities of Italian wine, this is the place to go to school.

Dessert is not my favorite part of an Italian meal, but I gave in to the wishes of my dinner partner and ordered the perennially popular tiramisu. It was a delicate and creamy wedge of goodness, about what you’d expect from a place that seems to make nearly everything with great care. Next time this weary food critic tires of the ornate and the overly trendy, I’m heading to Timonium.

If you go to Il Basilico Trattoria Italiana in Timonium, bring two things: a group and an appetite. You’ll need both to make a dent in this casual eatery’s carbo-concentrated plates of Italian staples and inventive originals.

Founded as Pasta Blitz in 2006 by Boot Country ex-pats Anna and Sal Di Pierno, it was rebranded Il Basilico in 2013, after both the space and the menu received enough updates to warrant a name change.

The offerings are mostly classic Italian red-sauce fare: parmigianas (chicken, veal, or eggplant); lasagnas (meat or eggplant); stuffed shells; plus pizzas (New York- and Sicilian-style) with a constellation of toppings. But over time, more innovative dishes have appeared that exhibit the Di Piernos’ commitment to fresh ingredients and unusual preparations.

On a recent outing, we tried a bit of both the old and the new and found the results uneven, but never less than satisfying in the way that Italian fare—even when imperfect—rarely disappoints. A hot antipasto of jumbo shrimp, broccoli and mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and garlic, and a ricotta-stuffed eggplant sounded like an interesting departure from the norm but was marred by overly sauced veggies and rubbery shrimp. That being said, the salty-savory eggplant folded over pillowy ricotta was a blissful beginning bite.

For entrees, we stuck with the pasta plates. A special of pasta twists with calamari, little neck clams, and jumbo gulf shrimp in a white-wine-and-cherry-tomato sauce ($25) was a bit bland, but a tri-color cheese tortellini with ham and mushrooms in a white cream sauce ($15) was precisely as our server described it—a decadent, grown-up version of mac and cheese.

The real star, however, was the gnocchi Toscana ($18): tiny potato morsels polished to pearly smoothness and served in a rich pesto-cream sauce dotted with dollops of piquant Gorgonzola and strands of spinach.

The desserts also hit the spot. We highly recommend the tart lemon sorbet ($7.95), served in a hollowed-out lemon rind, or the chocolate tartufo ($6.95), a large bonbon-shaped confection that’s like a cross between a Ferrero Rocher and an ice-cream cake.

After a couple of visits, everyone in your party is sure to have a go-to favorite.

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›› Il Basilico Trattoria Italiana: 49 W. Aylesbury Rd., Timonium, 410-453-6603. Hours: Mon.-Thurs.: 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat.: 11 a.m.-11 p.m., Sun.: 12 p.m.-10 p.m. Prices: $2-35.

When we heard Anastasia Italian Bistro & Lounge was opening on Thames Street, a stone’s throw from the other Kali’s Restaurant Group holdings (Kali’s Court, Tapas Adela, Admiral’s Cup), we had great expectations. The restaurant, which doubles as an after-hours club, replaces the restaurant group’s Meli American Bistro, a Mediterranean-inspired bistro, which never quite found its footing. The new concept, named for owner Vasilis Keramidas’s daughter, and, appropriately, translated as “resurrection,” is probably more in keeping with its Fells Point neighborhood, which includes lots of live music and a plethora of places to party.

Anastasia fits right into the scene, with its décor based on things that go vroom (including floor-to-ceiling photographs of Italian motorcycles and cars) and va-va-voom (life-sized images of lusty-looking sex sirens Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida are on the walls) in a slick, sexy space.

Think: La dolce vita comes to Fells Point.

Anastasia wears many hats, from the time it opens at 11 a.m. for lunch service until the last disco light stops spinning at 2 a.m. It’s a place to eat outside on a summer’s day, a spot for satisfying Italian fare or a craft cocktail during a daily happy hour, and after 10 p.m., a venue for those who want to get down and boogie to the beat of live local bands.

The menu features an assortment of classic starters (antipasto, fried calamari), traditional Italian pasta dishes (frutti de mare, rigatoni with spicy pork sausage and porcini mushrooms), and a variety of personal pizzas, though if you want something lighter (and less pricey), you can also opt for a simple sandwich—a meatball sub or roasted vegetable panini—served with a side salad or fries.

We arrived at 7:30 p.m. for dinner on a Saturday night, and we had the dining room almost to ourselves, though by 9 p.m., the place was packed with patrons, many of whom were there to dance and drink. We came for the food.

The bruschetta sampler, with a variety of tasty toppings, including garlic-infused, fire-roasted tomatoes and house-made pesto and roasted red peppers, was fun and festive and paired well with our drinks (a Sangiovese Chianti and a signature Sophia—Van Gogh vodka with lychee liqueur, cranberry juice, and a floating rose petal). We followed the baguette bites with a shared Caesar salad. Though nothing special, the salad sated our need to graze before the main course and featured a good kick of garlic. Our grilled shrimp entree, prepared simply with olive oil and garlic and sided by steamed Brussels sprouts and a generous heap of crisp, roasted potatoes, was a highlight of the meal.

Another winner was the lasagna bolognese—a sizeable slab layered with minced veal and a homemade, tangy tomato sauce. The entrees were served on square, white plates which framed the food beautifully. We wrapped up the meal with tiramisu, which was the only real culinary disappointment of the night. The lady fingers were overly soaked in coffee liqueur, and the texture, usually rendered light and airy from whipped mascarpone, had turned soggy.

Overall, our service made us smile, though not necessarily for the right reasons. It’s safe to say what we witnessed—including one of the bartenders using a lint brush in the middle of the dining room floor—is not in the Food Service Playbook. Though we had several servers through the course of the evening, the waitress taking our order seemed unfamiliar with the menu and answered our menu questions monosyllabically.

Anastasia wears many hats, from the time it opens at 11 a.m. until the last disco light stop spinning at 2 a.m.

On a repeat visit, during the lunch shift, service was improved, but the portions were on the smaller side and the quality of the food seemed to have slipped. My companion and I opted for the “Pick Two” special—$7.95 for your choice of a cup of soup and half a salad, pizza, or panini combination. We opted for the Caprese panini (tomato, mozzarella, basil) and a tricolored salad with a colorful Italian flag-inspired assortment of alternating tomato, avocado, and mozzarella on a skewer. The half-sandwich was gone in three bites, and the waiter didn’t warn us that the side salad was almost identical to the sandwich filling. The half of a personal pizza packed with crispy prosciutto was more generously portioned. Overall, it was tasty, but more of a flatbread than a pizza.

Also problematic (unless you sit outside or in a side dining room): Most of the tables are comprised of high-tops with backless barstools, which is not the most comfortable way to spend an evening if you want to sit back and relax.

Like it’s predecessor, Anastasia still seems to be searching for its identity. Is it a nightclub? An upscale dining spot? A cafe? The food is above average, but the uneven service and the lounge concept don’t work well if you’re looking for a fine-dining experience. As the saying goes, you can’t be all things to all people.

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ANASTASIA ITALIAN BISTRO & LOUNGE 1636 Thames St., 410-534-6666.
HOURS 11 a.m.-2 a.m., daily.
CUISINE Nouvelle Italian.
PRICE Appetizers: $4.99-11.95; entrees: $12.95-16.95; desserts: $3.95-7.95.
ATMOSPHERE Italian bistro-bar with live music.

For overstuffed sandwiches, pre-made lasagnas, and authentic Italian fare, it’s no secret that Trinacria, in business since 1908, sets the gold standard. (One might say they put the “deli” in delicious.) When rumors began circulating that a second Trinacria was opening (and, even better, staying open after 4:30 p.m.—the original’s somewhat random closing time) on the Westside,expectations ran high. Fortunately, the new Trinacria Cafe delivers (literally, too), though it’s less of a cafe and more of a cafeteria, which is fitting given its location on the former site of a Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Like the original location in Seton Hill, there’s no waitress service, as you place your order at the counter. The décor, brightened only by shelves stocked with imported canned tomatoes, dried pastas, and the like, could use some work, but there’s plenty of focus on the food. You need but one bite of the tender homemade sausage and beautifully balanced marinara sauce (order it as a side for a measly $3.95) to be reminded of this place’s pedigree. Most of the original’s sandwiches have made their way to the menu here. Thankfully, the prosciutto (with fresh mozzarella and pesto on foccacia for $7.50) and veggie (fresh mozzarella, artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, and tapenade for $6.95) are among the cold sandwich offerings, along with tasty paninis, and luscious hot subs, and salads. Also available are daily filled pastas and an unabashedly cheesy spinach lasagna, as well as sizable “personal” pizzas that could easily feed two. The pizzas are listed as “thin crust,” but are more like a flatbread (not insignificant to a pizza aficionado), but the toppings are of high quality and nicely composed. The “Sweet and Salty” ($9.75) is a good example, with lots of translucent caramelized onions, crisp prosciutto, chunks of kalamata olives, tangy mozzarella, and roasted garlic—perhaps surprising for a run-of-the-mill carry out, but here we would expect no less. All in all, Trinacria Cafe is a proud progeny of this third-generation Italian institution.

 ›› Trinacria Cafe, 111 W. Centre St., 443-759-4082, Hours: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Sat.; 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday; appetizers: $3.50-8.95; entrees: $7.25-11.95; desserts: $3.69-4.99.

Sporting a rustic look that mixes the terra-cotta colors of the Southwest with vintage fixtures and repurposed wood, Forno boasts one of the most inviting interiors we’ve seen in a while. This cozy and casual wine bar, situated in the Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment District directly across from the Hippodrome Theatre and next door to Everyman Theatre, serves up what husband-and-wife co-owners Emina Dukic and Bryan Noto are calling “coastal cuisine”: brick-oven pizzas, small plates and quick bites, and a handful of more substantial entrees. Forno is well-positioned to fill a need in a neighborhood clamoring for more good dining choices, and, given the location, attracting theater-going customers should be a no-brainer. But long-term success will mean attracting loyal neighborhood customers as well. Can Forno fill the bill? If first impressions mean anything, we’re betting this charming spot will draw in both kinds of diners.

Noto (a former manager at nearby Alewife) and Dukic have fashioned a space that makes a great first impression. As you enter, the light-filled main dining room beckons on one side, while the cool, marble-topped bar entices on the other. That impression continues with the welcoming waitstaff. After a friendly greeting from the hostess, a knowledgeable waitress quietly, but enthusiastically, led us through chef Kris Sandholm’s menu, which emphasizes locally sourced, seasonal ingredients. As befits a wine bar, there is a nicely priced selection of reds and whites—many of them New World offerings in the $25-35 range, with most available by the glass as well.

We began with a sinful-sounding item from the “Bites” section, the crispy chicken skins with spicy barbeque sauce. Translucent shards of greaseless and, yes, crispy bits of what I consider the best part of the chicken were good enough to eat without the kicky sauce. Grilled whole squid from the “Small Plates” section was also a pleaser. Five whole squid atop a bed of baby kale—a generous portion big enough for a table of four to share—were grilled just to silky tenderness, with a touch of smoky flavor for depth. We couldn’t help but order the intriguing “Dr. Joe’s bacon-cured duck breast wrapped cornichon” (whew!), but this small plate was a bit less successful. Although they didn’t quite live up to their title, the little pickles in their smoky duck jackets were just fine, but they were perched atop croutons spread with a too-sweet mash of caramelized onions with an unpleasant, mushy texture. We simply plucked the cornichon off the croutons, which were superfluous. Problem solved.

No such problem with the entrees. There are only five or six to choose from—on our night, two fish selections, a grilled pork loin, chicken, a Moroccan-spiced rabbit, and a dish of curried vegetables with mustard greens and hominy—but that’s about right for a restaurant serving lots of eat-and-go theater patrons. But if you’re going to the theater, try to arrive early because these entrees are meant to linger over. Pale pink Arctic char is delicate and perfectly cooked, and its sides of braised fennel and artichokes with sundried tomato-flecked wild rice are a delicious complement. The Springfield Farm half chicken is moist, juicy, and smoked just enough to hint at summer barbeques and outdoor picnics. It, too, comes with pleasing vegetable sides: tiny baby beets, turnips, and fingerling potatoes glazed with chicken demi-glace and roasted. Next time, we’re going for the rabbit, which diners at the next table were “oohing” and “aahing” over.

The brick-oven pizzas at Forno—which is, after all, Italian for “oven”—hold a prominent place on the menu, and they’re solid, certainly good enough to comprise a meal. Thin-crusted and slightly charred around the edges, all but one feature fresh vegetables and cheeses—in the case of the Farmer’s Pizza, a moist house-made ricotta. The only thing standing in the way of perfection was an overdose of rosemary, which overwhelmed both the ricotta and the roasted vegetables. The pizza funghi was closer to heaven, with big hunks of earthy porcini studding a properly thin glaze of tomato and Parmesan. We’re looking forward to trying the pizza carne, which substitutes the mushrooms for confit duck, smoked bacon, and pulled pork, and the Parmesan for Asiago.

Desserts at Forno are just big enough to share and small enough not to overwhelm. We enjoyed a flourless chocolate “bar”—two dense and fudgy triangles presented in a cup and surrounded by fresh coffee-flavored cream—that was happily more semi-sweet than sugary, which is just how we like it. And just how we like to cap a meal of small bites and more substantial fare, in a setting we’d gladly return to, whether en route to a play or just to enjoy Forno’s quietly enticing pleasures.