Sketches of two giants of comedy stare down from the front wall at the stage of Magoobys Joke House. Richard Pryor has a wry smile on his face, like he’s amused slightly. The look on George Carlin’s mug is a bit more quizzical, as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

For the past 15 years, the Timonium comedy club has hosted stand-ups of all ilk, from heavyweights like Tracy Morgan, Nate Bargatze, and Richard Lewis to up-and comers and down-and-outers. Through it all, brother-owners Andrew and Marc Unger (no relation to this writer) have remained dedicated to providing a top-notch venue for the full spectrum of fans and performers of an art form that Andrew says has no equal.

“It’s just [the comic] and a mic and a different audience each night and you never know exactly how the crowd’s going to respond,” he says. “I can’t think of anything harder in entertainment.”

Andrew was in the investment banking business when, seeking a professional change, he and his brother, Marc, a stand-up comic and co-creator of the web series Thespian, took over an existing comedy club in 2007 beneath The Bowman restaurant in Parkville. Marc had performed there and thought it had the potential to be improved. Within a couple of years, the Ungers transformed it from a place attracting 50 or so people a week to one that drew upward of 400.

In 2010, they moved it to what was formerly a dinner theater on Deereco Road and, three years later, added the Wits End Saloon, an attached whiskey-focused bar that hosts open-mics on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Now, their 300-seat club is among the largest in the region.

“You want to motivate people to put some pants on and come out to see live comedy,” says Andrew, pictured above. “Make it a special night for them. Great service.  Good food. Provide an environment that is conducive to good stand-up comedy. The more intimate, the better connection the comedian has to the audience.”

Each month, the club hosts a new-talent showcase. Winners advance to a larger competition in which Magoobys crowns its New Comedian of the Year. It may soundlike a silly title, but it can provide a significant boost to a comedian’s career. Past victors include Tires stars Shane Gillis and Baltimore’s own Stavros Halkias (whose photo was recently stolen from the club’s wall-of-fame in the lobby).

Besides, silly is exactly what the Ungers were going for when they came up with the name Magoobys. A combination of Andrew’s nicknames for his two oldest c hildren, what it lacks in gravitas it makes up for with inanity.

“We knew comics would make fun of it, and they do, which is great,” he says. “It’s kind of ridiculous that you have to go work at a place called Magoobys Joke House.”

Pryor and Carlin would no doubt agree.

Liberatore’s Ristorante is that classic Italian restaurant that checks all the boxes when you’re craving Italian food, not necessarily the kind they eat in Italy, the kind we’ve adopted in America as our own. There’s the epic menu with lavish cream sauces that make us pine for a past when “carb” wasn’t a four-letter word. An expansive wine list that showcases grapes from Piedmont to Tuscany. Polite old-world service that shoots straight from the heart. Timeless décor and nary a trendy Edison bulb or living plant wall, as well as plates that aren’t overly styled for Instagram—with little more than a swoosh design here or an edible flower garnish there.

This family-owned operation first opened in Eldersburg in 1988. In the ensuing decades, the brand has spun off several spots with only slight differences. Lib’s Grill in Perry Hall features steaks and seafood in a more laid-back setting; Liquid Lib’s, the wine bar that shares the same building with the Timonium location, serves tapas and pizzas. And the Timonium outpost, where we ate, is in the midst of remodeling. “The Liberatore’s locations don’t just serve food, they serve memories,” boasts the website. And herein lies the attraction. With its generous portions, fair pricing, honest food, and a dessert tray that allows you to make your selection based on eye appeal, a meal here gives me a case of dining déjà vu, reminding me so much of the suburban staples where I grew up eating on the outskirts of Philadelphia. As my fellow reviewer said, while we sat in the white tablecloth dining room with muzak playing in the background, the year could be 2019—or 1988, when they opened.

There’s comfort in the fact that there are few surprises here. An order of bruschetta was pleasantly garlicky. The Liberatore’s tossed salad was a tad too heavily dressed in balsamic vinaigrette, but nicely chilled with a variety of vegetables including sliced mushrooms and celery. On the entrée side of the menu, the star of the show was a brick-sized slab of eggplant Parmesan. The chunky house-made tomato sauce (or gravy, as Italian-Americans like to say) was well-balanced, and the eggplant was soft and sweet (clearly salted before it was fried to remove any trace of bitterness). We also enjoyed a spaghetti with clam sauce, though the advertised “fresh” clams were minced and not whole, a likely sign that they came from a can (or jar). A less successful entrée was the chicken pino, ironically a dish our server recommended. It was pan-fried with a piece of mozzarella melted over an out-of-season tomato. It also had an unfortunate sweetness to it.

As he cleared our mostly clean plates, our server commented, “I guess you’re too full for dessert.” We took that as a challenge and finished our meal with an exceptional, cloud-like piece of house-made coconut cake. Thank heaven for suburban Italian restaurants!

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LIBERATORE’S RISTORANTE & CATERING 410-561-3300, 9515 Deerco Rd., Timonium. HOURS: Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sun. 3-9 p.m. PRICES: Starters: $6.95-14.95; entrees: $19.95-36.95; pastas: $15.95-21.95. AMBIANCE: Old-World Italian.

[Editor’s Note: After press time, the Trump administration lifted an Obama-era policy that discouraged federal prosecutors from bringing cannabis-related charges in states where it has been legalized. A congressional amendment prohibits the Justice Department from interfering with medical marijuana programs in approved states, but justice officials have expressed that this would not bar the possibility of medical marijuana-related prosecutions.]

Walking into the warehouse of Curio Wellness, you’re hit by a scent that’s somewhat expected but still surprising in its strength: marijuana.

As one of the Baltimore region’s first medical cannabis facilities, this large industrial space looks like a futuristic science lab, with bright lighting overhead and staff drifting about in turquoise scrubs and lab coats. Past security, through a hygienic entrance, and down the long hallway, you pass cultivation chambers filled with lights for growing cannabis plants, and drying and curing rooms, where long, leaf-covered stems hang upside down to dry. It all adds up to one thing: the medical cannabis industry is officially here, and even as the Trump administration throws its future into uncertainty, well-oiled machines like Curio make it look like it’s going to stay.

Dressed in a hazmat suit and hairnet, Wendy Bronfein rattles off the high-tech features of this state-of-the-art facility, which she co-founded in 2014 with her father, Michael, an alumnus of the healthcare industry. “We’re taking the structured, common sense approach of the food and drug industry and applying it here,” says Bronfein, pointing out the complex irrigation system and beaker-filled research and development areas. “Our goal is to make standardized medicine. We’re going to need to sustain the demand.”

After state approval, Curio’s production began at their Timonium facility this past August, and when their dispensary opens—they’re aiming for this month—they will be among the first growers and processors to hit the local market, offering a range of premium products to the more than 10,000 residents already waiting with medical cannabis cards. (Cannabis can be recommended by doctors for the treatment of everything from cancer to chronic pain.) At full capacity, Curio expects to grow upward of 11,000 pounds of “flower” a year.

Those harvests will then be available just down the street at Curio’s brick-and-mortar dispensary in the form of smokable buds, tinctures, topicals, capsules, and vapes. Here, cardholders can come for patient consultations and pickups, while other features, such as a vitamin and supplement pharmacy, massage, and acupuncture, will be open to the public.

With modern fixtures and a sleek spa vibe, Curio hopes to offer a more holistic approach to wellness in a setting that feels like a high-end experience. “Not a headshop,” insists head pharmacist and dispensary manager Brian Sanderoff, noting that the space will double as an educational facility with workshops, support groups, and job training. The goal is to inform the local community about this new industry’s role in the future of integrative medicine. 

“It’s a really exciting time,” says Bronfein. “We don’t believe that cannabis is here to be a cure-all. But we do know it improves people’s quality of life, and we think that’s really important.”
 

A Timonium mainstay for more than 30 years, Michael’s Café was born before some of its booze-loving customers gulped their first sips of milk. To keep current, the restaurant recently reinvented itself, opening a new indoor lounge and outdoor patio, and bringing in Mark Davis, formerly of Ten Ten and The Highland Inn, as chef.

Judging by the crowds we saw on our visits this summer, Michael’s is far from the throes of a midlife crisis. The patio area is an attractive walled oasis that exudes a vacation vibe, while excluding most of the noise and visual clutter of York Road. (Only the glowing arches from a McDonald’s across the street disrupt the suspension of disbelief.)

On warm evenings, almost everyone outside, including the super-attentive and friendly servers and bartenders, wears shades. A chalkboard details a variety of cocktails and crushes, which we found to be well mixed, properly proportioned, and incredibly refreshing. Even in the heat of happy hour, our bartender, Gill, peered through his aviators and made a coconut margarita and a Grapefruit Salty Dog—a concoction of Sloop Betty vodka from the Eastern Shore and fresh grapefruit juice—with care. Both were excellent, as was a Kentucky Buck, made with Bulleit bourbon, strawberries, lemon, bitters, ginger beer, and simple syrup, which we downed on a previous visit.

The food was a bit less even. A large roster of appetizers includes standards like wings. (The buffalo variety were excellent, spiced to satisfy everyone in our party.) The more exotic offering of fried green tomatoes, despite being topped with crabmeat, was disappointingly bland. Raw oysters are available, as are shrimp, clams, and mussels. The apple and bleu cheese salad, pepped up by caramelized walnuts, is a solid starter.

Throughout its life, Michael’s has been hailed for its crab cakes, and we found its current version, comprised of solid chunks of meat mixed with modest amounts of tasty filler, to be stellar. We enjoyed it with a medium-rare 6-ounce filet mignon, which was served exactly how we ordered it. Less successful was the lobster-crab cake hybrid, which left our palate confused—you’re better off sticking with the standard cake. The sides we sampled—mashed potatoes, beets, Broccolini, and asparagus—were nothing special.

Make no mistake about it: Michael’s is as much about the fun as the food. Inside, there’s a bright v-shaped bar, a spacious dining room, and a darker original bar that’s surrounded by sports memorabilia. TVs are seemingly everywhere, and music and conversation create a constant buzz. Even as it’s ditched its 20s for its 30s, the cafe’s continued the party.

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MICHAEL’S CAFÉ 2119 York Road, Timonium, 410-252-2022.
HOURS 10 a.m.-2 a.m. every day.
PRICES Appetizers: $8-26; entrees: $18.50-42; sandwiches: $10-31.
ATMOSPHERE Fun in the sun-burbs.

At 4 years old, Donnell Whittenburg was already turning his mother’s Northeast Baltimore duplex into his personal jungle gym. He’d learned to shimmy to the top of the home’s interior doors. If he found a ceiling rod in the basement or a beam above the patio, he’d find a way to climb and swing himself off of those. He mastered jumps and flips from the stairs and living room cartwheels. He wasn’t a boisterous or rebellious child. In fact, Whittenburg was, and remains, quite shy and soft-spoken—just extraordinarily active.

By 5, he was scaling up the side of the house and walking around the dining room table on his hands. His mom, Sheila Brown, remembers him once taking an accidental tumble down a full flight of stairs—in front of guests, no less—only to watch him land on his feet and shrug it off as if nothing happened.

Today, the 21-year-old is a heading to the Olympics as a U.S. men’s gymnastic team alternate. He has been featured in Time and a television commercial with Michael Phelps, promoting the games in Rio de Janeiro this month. Recently, Sports Illustrated ranked him one of the 50 “fittest” male athletes in the world.

But none of this was ever planned. Or even dreamt. His single mother, a career social worker, didn’t know anything about gymnastics when Whittenburg was a little boy. She was simply looking—prodded by his older sister, who was in high school at the time—for somewhere safer than her house for him to practice his stunts when she enrolled him in youth classes.

“I was like, ‘Mom, you have to do something with him,” Latisha Smith, Whittenburg’s sister, recalls with a laugh.

When Donnell Whittenburg burst onto the international sporting radar eight months ago at the World Gymnastics Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, he seemed to have arrived out of nowhere. Whittenburg’s eighth-place overall finish came only after being added to the qualifying field when a Belarus gymnast withdrew at the last moment. Not only did he finish nine spots higher than his closest teammate in the overall standings, he also garnered one of only two U.S. medals won in Scotland—a bronze in the vault—which was his first-ever world championship individual medal.

“I just wanted to come out and do gymnastics,” the powerfully built Whittenburg said with classic modesty. He added that he simply was happy that the men’s team was able “to bring back some hardware.”

Suffice to say, he was disappointed when he didn’t hear his name called for the five-man, U.S. men’s squad after the Olympic trials in late June, but Whittenburg remains excited to go to Rio. At the 2008 Olympics, two U.S. alternates did compete—injuries are a regular part of the game in gymnastics—and he’s still the second-youngest U.S. male gymnast headed to the games this month. “I’m still pretty happy. I get to travel with these guys and be able to support them, and I still have a role to play. I’m still going to train as hard as these guys do because you never know what’s going to happen,” Whittenburg said in a TeamUsa.org interview.

Certainly, the U.S. national coaches recognized Whittenburg’s preternatural ability when they first invited him to train full-time at the team’s facility in Colorado Springs several years ago. What no one could’ve predicted, however, was the accelerated pace of his development in the sport—not to mention his physique—which has filled out to Marvel superhero proportions with the benefit of twice-daily practices and top-flight nutrition. On a men’s squad that boasts a number of Olympic veterans and seasoned, world-class competitors, Whittenburg is considered a rising star alongside Sam Mikulak, 23, the defending U.S. all-around champion.

“He can do things that are kind of unexplainable,” says Mazeika.

“We saw him at the junior nationals and we knew he had an unbelievable upside then, but his progress [since training full-time at the Olympic Training Center] has just been dramatic. Just incredibly fast,” men’s senior national team coordinator Kevin Mazeika says. “He can do things that are kind of unexplainable. Obviously, his strength, which is off-the-charts, is a great strength,” Mazeika continues with a chuckle. “What’s really been surprising is how quick he is.”

Whittenburg clearly possesses a combination of explosiveness and body awareness that is rare—even among world-class gymnasts, Mazeika says. That this comes with a deep desire to improve on the six apparatus that make up men’s gymnastics is even better. “As I got older, mastering the different skills in the various events [rings, vault, parallel bars, pommel horse, high bar, floor] started to intrigue me,” says Whittenburg, whose hobbies include skateboarding and drumming. “Taking them to the next level, refining them, that’s been the mindset for me. It is always a challenge.”

But more compelling than his athletic ability—his catapults off the vaulting horse are as thrilling as anything on display at these Olympic Games—is his back-story. For starters, competitive gymnastic skills, if they are to be acquired at all, require well-trained professional coaches and serious equipment in proper gyms. At elite levels, it’s an expensive sport and traditionally associated with affluent suburban kids. The Northeast Baltimore community where Whittenburg grew up isn’t exactly known as a hotbed of world-class gymnastics.

And not only did his single, working mother have Whittenburg and his sister, Latisha, at home, she had another older daughter, Taneisha, who is mentally disabled, deaf, blind, and mute to care for. Whittenburg, his mother, and his younger sister Latisha—a health care provider who is married with four children today—all refer to Taneisha as “the backbone” of their family. “She’s the one who brought us all closer together,” Whittenburg’s mother says. “Everyone had to pitch in to look after her. Donnell or his sister never complained about any of it.”

As Whittenburg got older and continued to progress, the coaching, gym, and travel costs—not to mention the daily commute to work, school, and practice—added up. At 7 years old, after two years in local youth rec classes, his mother enrolled him at Rebounders Gymnastics in Timonium. By 11, he was traveling to compete in out-of-state meets.

Even at a young age, Whittenburg recognized the challenges his mother faced in supporting his athletic pursuits. After all, it’s not like there is the guarantee of an Olympic medal for anyone, whatever their circumstances. “It was a struggle. Growing up and doing gymnastics was definitely hard financially,” Whittenburg says. “My mom sacrificed a lot, in terms of money and time. It’s just not a cheap sport. But she knew I loved it and would do anything she could so I could keep going.

“I was lucky, too, that my old coach would tell my mother that she could pay what she could, when she could,” Whittenburg continues. “I know he waived the fees sometimes, too.”

That “old coach” is longtime mentor Abdul Mammeri, who coached him at three clubs, including his earliest days with Rebounders Gymnastics, ultimately guiding him to the Junior Olympics where he was initially spotted by U.S. national coaches. A former Algerian national team member, Mammeri remembers seeing Whittenburg at Rebounders during one of the youngster’s first classes and immediately knowing that he wanted him for his club team. Mammeri wasn’t just a former gymnast, he’d also studied coaching for five years at the university level in Algeria.

He became, however, more than a coach for Whittenburg.

“Coach Abdul is absolutely an awesome guy. He’s definitely been a father figure for me,” says Whittenburg, who was estranged from his dad for many years. “He always went out of his way to help me.”

Mammeri recalls the early car rides home after practice when Whittenburg’s mom couldn’t pick him up.

“He wouldn’t talk,” says Mammeri, laughing. “I’d ask him a question and get a one-word answer.”

But, Mammeri says, Whittenburg was fearless from the start in the gym. He also never whined or begged off at practice—unlike many kids, he was always ready to tackle the next skill. “Whether it was something he thought he could do or not, it didn’t matter,” Mammeri says. “He listened and then he’d try. And almost always, he could do the move. Not with perfect or even good technique. That only comes with practice. But he could get his body in the right place.”

The pair became even closer as Whittenburg entered Edgewood High School. By eighth grade, Whittenburg was recognizing his genuine passion for the sport—he’d given up baseball and karate and other endeavors by then—but he’d also run into trouble at the end of that school year. “He got jumped and beaten up badly by four boys in the school bathroom and I had to go see him at school,” Brown recalls. “I didn’t know if it was a gang initiation thing or what, but I was getting him out of Baltimore public schools. I had seen enough as a social worker, and that wasn’t going to happen to him. I did what I had to do.”

Brown used her sister’s address in Harford County to send her son to Edgewood High School where he graduated in 2012. Whittenburg did have a key to his aunt’s house, but nearly every night, his mother left her job to pick him up in Harford County and then shuttled him to Timonium where he trained under Mammeri while she returned to work. Afterward, she’d drive back to Timonium to bring him back to Northeast Baltimore. Her mornings with her kids began every day at 5:30 a.m.

“I lost my father when I was 12, and I would have conversations with his mother, who did an incredible job raising her children,” Mammeri says. “I would say to her, ‘Sheila, please keep him coming to the gym no matter what. It’s going to keep him out of trouble. It will save his life.’”

But Mammeri also was tough on Whittenburg. “I never tell him, ‘It’s good,’ unless it’s good. And he knew that,” Mammeri says. “He’s a champion kid, mentally. You can leave him alone in the gym because he wants to get the job done and knows how to focus.”

After graduating from high school, Whittenburg tried to juggle community college with his training, but it wasn’t working out. When a professor told him he couldn’t afford to miss a week’s worth of school to travel to a meet, Whittenburg reached out to the U.S. national team coaches. They immediately invited him out to Colorado Springs.

Mammeri acknowledges it was hard, but it was time to let Whittenburg go. “I told him, ‘They have the best trainers there, doctors, nutritionists—everything you’ll need.’”

Since then, he has literally taken off.

Whittenburg is one of three gymnasts in the world who have pulled off what’s known as a Ri Se Gwang pike—a one-and-a-half back-flip and full twist vault named after the North Korean gymnast who first performed it in competition in 2009. Only one other vault is judged more difficult.

The vault, rings, and floor exercise are Whittenburg’s best disciplines, followed by the parallel bars, pommel horse, and high bar. At the P&G Championships in June, he lost his grip on the high bar and fell after leading the meet early. But he rebounded, won the gold in the vault, and ultimately finished fifth overall.

For all the pressure that the Olympics bring to bear, Whittenburg doesn’t believe he’ll be overcome with nerves or anything like that if he gets the chance to perform.

He mentions that growing up with someone with disabilities, for example, helps provide an appreciation for life and its experiences. “You understand that something like having a disability could happen to anyone,” he says. “It puts things in perspective.

“I just want to go and compete,” he says of Rio. “I want to feel comfortable. I want to do good routines. Whatever happens after that, happens.”

Meanwhile, his mother is a different story. She and her son may share many qualities, but personality-wise, they are night and day. She’s outgoing and talkative, and on the outside, at least, the much more anxious of the two.

Maybe it goes with being a mother.

“Oh, you can’t find me when Donnell’s turn comes,” Brown says. “I can’t stay in my seat. I’m up. I’m walking around the stadium.” And if her son gets the opportunity to compete in Rio? “Those television cameras shouldn’t even bother looking for me.”

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Other Maryland Olympic Athletes

Swimming
Jack Conger, Rockville
Katie Ledecky, Bethesda
Michael Phelps, Baltimore
Chase Kalisz, Bel Air

Basketball
Carmelo Anthony, Baltimore
Angel McCoughtry, Baltimore

Canoe/Kayak
Ashley Nee, Darnestown

Cycling
Bobby Lea, Easton

Sailing
Joe Morris, Annapolis

Triathlon
Katie Zaferesm, Hampstead

Volleyball
Aaron Russell, Ellicott City

Wrestling
Helen Maroulis, Rockville
Kyle Snyder, Woodbine

There’s something happening in the Lutherville-Timonium corridor lately. An area once dotted with chains, particularly along York and Padonia roads, has become home to spinoffs of city stalwarts. In other words, trend alert: Kooper’s, Ryleigh’s Oyster, and now Mother’s Grille, have all booked it to the ’burbs.

Mother’s North Grille (2450 Broad Ave., Timonium, 443-991-5256), which opened in a former Applebee’s space in March, is counting on customers who, says co-owner Dave Rather, frequented the original Federal Hill bar in their 20s and are now (gulp) all grown up—with kids in tow—and eager to flock to a familiar spot in the suburbs.

Though there’s no Purple Patio or Big Buck Hunter video console, the new location—with red-and-black accents, TVs, and a Cajun-inspired menu—is still reminiscent of the South Charles Street original. Regulars will recognize signature dishes, like the aptly named, deep-fried Heart Attack burger (stuffed with cheese and battered in beer), smoky chipotle mac and cheese, and an ample wing selection. (We recommend the Sriracha barbecue wings, which had a fiery chili and garlic kick.)

The bar’s drink options cater to the craft-inclined, a far cry from Mother’s original reputation as a place to down cheap light beers. With 20 taps and 60 bottles full of selections from Union Craft, Monument City, and Flying Dog, the Timonium location is more sophisticated than its city counterpart.

There’s also an extensive bourbon list (with flight options) and a bourbon night every Wednesday. Mother’s trademark crushes are still a highlight. We tried the Tropical Crush, inspired by Rather’s brother (also co-owner and chef) Adam, who lived in the Virgin Islands. The cocktail­­—a mix of rum, coconut cream, pineapple and orange juices, grenadine, fruit, and crushed ice in a pint glass­­—transported us to the white beaches of the Caribbean.

Though Mother’s North is experiencing some growing pains (the design still closely resembles its former occupant), the newest incarnation of the Federal Hill stalwart reminds us that age is just a number.

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.