Watching the Winter Olympics in Torino made me hungry for Italian food, and the first place I thought about was Il Fornaio in Green Valley Ranch.
I first experienced Il Fornaio, Italian for baker, while browsing around in Beverly Hills. In the late-'80s, the chain was primarily a bakery, the only place in the area for Italian-style muffins and croissants, plus literally dozens of other traditional baked goods from Italy that were, until the concept took off, hard to find in America.
In subsequent years, though, the concept developed into a full-fledged restaurant chain, with outposts all over the States and in several countries. It seemed like a natural when it opened in Green Valley Ranch, part of a restaurant family that boasted Trophy's, a sports bar; Bull Shrimp, a steak and seafood house; and Border Grill, featuring Latino-inspired fare by the Food Channel's Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, a.k.a. Two Hot Tamales.
But today at GVR, the restaurant scene is very different. First, the District has opened next door, with several other dining options, not to mention P.F. Chang's, Claim Jumper and others, adjacent to the center. What was formerly Bull Shrimp is now the gorgeous upscale steak house Hank's.
But Il Fornaio has survived, in part because of the enduring popularity of Italian cuisine in this country, and in part because the restaurant is, well, just plain dependable.
And now is a good time to go. Because for most of the year, the restaurant will offer a rotating menu of regional dishes, part of a promotion it calls Festa Regionale, or regional festival. The first two weeks of each month will bring a different type of Italian cooking. The restaurant recently finished serving recipes from Lazio, the province that contains Rome. Early this month, look for dishes from Calabria, the toe of Italy's so-called boot.
The impression here is that of a sprawling Tuscan villa: tiled floors, pillars painted with frescoes, chandeliers of wrought iron and views of neighboring Green Valley. Tables are draped in crisp white cloths, and there are snug booths and wicker chairs to sit in. At the wood-fired oven, chefs churn out a never-ending assembly line of pizzas and flatbreads.
The menu is quite extensive. Dishes are written with their Italian names; an English language description follows. Melanzane all Parmigiana is the restaurant's version of eggplant Parmesan. It is served hot, in a round casserole dish, the eggplant smoky, the cheese topping meltingly soft.
Pizzas are fairly workmanlike, though the crust is flavorful. I prefer rustichella, a goat cheese, olive and tomato-topped flatbread perfect to share. It's light, crisp and flavorful, a nice way to start any meal here. Calamaretti fritti, or fried calamari, is heavily battered. A carpaccio, thinly sliced raw beef served with shaved cheese, capers and arugula drizzled with lemon and olive oil, tasted as if the meat had been frozen for too long.
Pastas are uniformly fine. This is a good place to taste lasagna from Calabria, layered with eggs, meat ragu and sausage, as well as a scrumptious cheese ravioli and cappellacci di zucca, smaller ravioli filled with butternut squash and minced walnuts.
If you like the thumbnail-size dumplings of wheat and potato flour called gnocchi, the restaurant does a credible version, the dumplings not too hard, not too soft. Try them a la Bolognese, with a traditional meat ragu or a la Rustica, tossed with pesto, tomatoes and cream.
Among entrées, I usually go for garretto d'agnello, lamb shank braised with seasonal vegetables, or sometimes for a nice veal scalloppine. Steaks I've eaten here are tough and expensive to boot, even though I like the roasted potatoes and peperonata served with the dry-aged, 18-ounce rib eye, which at $26.95 is the most expensive dish on the regular menu.
Even though there is no bakery here, there is a monster dessert cart. The lightest thing on it is zabaglione, a frothy whip of egg yolks, Marsala wine and sugar, served in a glass dish with seasonal berries and whipped cream.
The Olympics may be over, but the yen for la cucina lives on.