Ricotta, pancetta, pappardelle, gnocchi: Viva Italia! Or, to quote the Boston Pizza chicken wing guy, “Knock me down and call me Susan.” I get a little excited when I think about Italian food, and Cibo, Edmonton’s newest Italian restaurant, has had me quivering in my boots since I saw the press release of their opening.

The team behind Cibo: NAIT Red Seal Chef Rosario Caputo and Sous Chef Matt Helstein are in the kitchen curing their own meats, making their own pasta, simmering ragùs and whipping up heart-stopping desserts. Michael Giampa (Rosario’s cousin) gained front-of-house experience over the years working in local restaurants before he and Rosario opened Cibo two months ago. They have the experience and the DNA. So far, so good.

The space is the old Tesoro Caffe & Bar, so while architecturally it’s still the same, the colours have been deepened, the lighting has been dimmed and the space overall more fine-dine’afide.

The guys tweet, they Facebook; they’re young, they’re hip, they’re cool, and they’re into food. So let’s talk about that—the food—starting with some plates meant to be shared:

1. Pan Fried Ricotta Cakes – house made goat ricotta, formed into little pillowy puffs that are topped with a tasty slathering of tomato basil jam and tender shredded chicken conduto. House made ricotta should be the standard method for any restaurant featuring this cheese. It makes all the difference in the world. This was a very good starter with all the right elements: savoury, sweet, salty and creamy.

2. Polenta Fritta – French fry-like rectangles of polenta with a stack of calabrese salami to wrap around each crispy stick, and a side of aioli for dipping. Did not expect this. And pleasantly surprised by how my kids inhaled them seeing as they all “hate polenta”.

3. Trio di Bruschetta Della Casa – three types of toppings on crostini: braised fennel and roasted red pepper, chanterelle mushroom ragù, marinated zucchini and dill. The best of the lot was the mushroom, followed by the fennel and pepper, and lastly and unanimously, the zucchini dill which was not liked by any. Too tangy, too vinegar-ish was the consensus.

The Mains:
This is a good looking menu, albeit a little on the caloric and carbohydrated side. Besides three pasta dishes (pastas made in-house), Cibo offers three meat entrees (pork, beef, veal) and four sides (three vegetable and one deep-fried rice ball). Diet-conscious eaters are going to have trouble here. One lonely salad peeks out from the antipasti area. The Brussels sprouts are done in brown butter and the mussels come in a bath of black garlic cream. So, good luck.

Throwing coronary caution to the wind, we went with:
1. Ravioli al Sugo – ricotta filled pasta squares topped with a tomato veal ragù. That’s my soul food right there. The pasta was delicate and plentiful, the ricotta tangy and soft, and the ragùhearty and rich. A bit too much salt in the ragùbut overall a very satisfying dish.

2. Pappardelle Bolognese – the menu says “traditional bolognese with wild boar” but that is incongruous with the origins of the dish. This meat-based sauce originated in Bologna, Italy and there is, believe it or not, an actual Bolognese delegation that stipulates what exactly can go into a traditional Bolognese sauce. It is Italy after all where regions and delegations and designations are paramount where anything edible or drinkable is concerned. In 1982, the delegation registered the traditional Bolognese recipe as one made with beef and served on tagliatelle, not pappardelle and definitely not—Dio mi perdoni!—spaghetti. No other meat is considered traditional and I dare you to tell someone from Bologna otherwise. That aside, wild boar is similar in taste to beef, so you’d actually be hard pressed to tell the difference anyways, especially in a dish like this. Cibo’s pappardelle bolognese was very good. This meat had obviously been simmered and coddled and whispered to and what resulted was some sweet Italian love clinging to those al dente noodles. (Photo fail, no photo).

3. Gnocchi – served in a gorgonzola cream. In my household, the topic of gnocchi is a hot and steamy one.  Ricotta, flour or potato? Naked (as in gnudi) or covered in cheese? At Cibo, the gnocchi are definitely a heavier dumpling and not the light, fluffy, airy pillows that some people favour. If I were a betting man, I’d say these were potato gnocchi made with a Yukon gold or other waxy spud…but I’m no man, and I don’t like to bet—unless I’m in Vegas and drinking lychee martinis.  Cibo, you let me down here. Those poor gnocchi suffocated and sank like little gummy Titanics under that heavy blanket of creamy gorgonzola sauce.

4. Guance di Manzo – Braised beef cheeks served with arancini and wilted rapini. I’ve saved this stunner for last. It’s been a long time since I’ve beheld a more tender piece of meat and my hat is off to whomever in the kitchen cooked this wonderful cut. Rich, deep flavours, toothsome yet yielding in texture. You could cut through it with a fork. The arancini, a deep fried ball of rice stuffed with mushroom and cheese could not compete with the star of the show, and the rapini…well, it’s rapini. What can you say: green and boring. That’s rapini. But the guance di manzo? Dreamworthy.

All that food meant we were going to be sharing desserts—you know, we didn’t want to overdo it. We shared the chocolate trio plate that came with a dark chocolate tart, white chocolate gelato, and a mousse made of Frangelico and milk chocolate. The chefs should be arrested, or sent to a confessional, because this chocolate was absolutely sinful.

The goat milk panna cotta was thankfully—finally!— a fairly light offering. Despite being a custard, it wasn’t heavy at all and was quite soothing to our over-taxed systems. The peppered blueberry sauce was more berry than pepper (that’s good), and topping it all off was a dusting of grated cheese. What kind of cheese? We asked and were given “I think it’s something like Parmesan…” by the waiter and when pressed, returned to tell us the kitchen told him they were too busy to tell him. Say what?

Unfortunately, this was the server’s modus operandi and the only thing that left us with a bad taste in our mouth—well, next to the frightful cocktail at the start that had both our server and the owner adding a dash of this and a dash of that only to be altered with god knows what liquid (water?) to compensate for the over-dashing of whatever was mistakenly poured into the glass.

The end result tasted like a watered down, melted, blue Popsicle. Cocktail fail. Even though I said it was watery, our server just smiled, touched my shoulder, and then walked away.
The food shone, no doubt. The service though, or rather our particular server, concerned us initially with his mispronunciation of menu items and lack of menu knowledge, and then irritated us with his hands on approach (literally hands on, as in touchy-feely every time he stopped by), and finally just offended us when he tried to snow us with bogus information. Very disappointing and not acceptable when the restaurant is trying to establish itself as an authentic Italian bistro.

And finally: the wine list has several spelling mistakes which need to be corrected in order for the establishment to be taken seriously. The Jumping Grape Sparkling Shiraz/Cab is listed in the Italian category which is something they might want to rectify because everyone knows that Italians don’t give their wines cutesy titles like Jumping Grape.

A few glitches, easily remedied.

My CBC Edmonton review can be heard here.