It’s always sad to see a good restaurant go, but it happens. Time goes by, the chef may move on, the management may lose focus, the public may tire of the concept, whatever the case may be. The doors close. It may take ten years, it may take twenty, it may take two. In the case of Beppe, it took about a decade. Today, if you stroll by that Tuscan farmhouse, a sweet sienna-stained bungalow on 22nd Street, you’ll find a new name on its door: Ciano, a fantastic new restaurant from chef Shea Gallante. Gallante, you will recall, was most recently serving intricate, lovely, and elegant food at Cru, a serenely serious restaurant on lower Fifth Avenue where wine was really the star.

At Ciano, he’s channeling his Italian roots along with ghosts of restaurants past and the lessons he learned at the knee of his Italian culinary mentors Pino Luongo and Lidia Bastianich. It’s a new paradigm for him and it’s working out quite well. That being said, I have very fond memories of Beppe, and I was sad to see it go. Susie, Jamie, Adrienne, and I shared many meals together there in our previous lives when we were all single and silly. We spent many nights in front of that blazing hearth drinking too many bottles of wine and tearing through plates of butcher’s pasta and piles of rosemary dusted fries. It was a place we returned to again and again for its warmth, its host (Tom Piscitello), and the food. I remember one night, Susie brought us each a “gift” of some new muffins she had been experimenting with. We still refer to them as the bran bricks. Another night, after a disappointing dinner somewhere else, we were in the mood for something good for dessert before heading home. We stopped in at Beppe and ordered a chocolate dessert to share. Adrienne brought the waiter back a few minutes after we had placed our order and sent him to the kitchen for the rosemary dusted fries, which she proceeded to dip into our chocolate dessert for a little added flavor. I tried it too. Chocolate coated salty French fries? Not half bad.

Years later, still silly, but graying around the edges, we returned to the scene of those chocolate dipped frites to sample the menu at the newly opened Ciano. The restaurant was packed tighter than a Vince sample sale at lunch hour, and with all that bulky winter dressing narrowing the pathway through the bar area to the dining room which is still warmed by a romantic fire-breathing hearth. The design of the restaurant has been modernized a bit, and rendered slightly more elegant with fine white tablecloths, silver flatware, and oversized china plates and bowls (they seem to be the same ones used at Cru and I’d recommend smaller less ornate ones for this concept). The walls are still rough brick and are lined on one side by a long rectangular canvas painting of dozens of rabbits that looks like it might have been done by a group of three year olds in a rainy day art class, but that is probably the work of some wunderkind out of Denmark whom I am too unenlightened to recognize. Lighting the room are several pewter chandeliers and a few other pieces that resemble burlap umbrellas. They’re actually quite striking.  

After a glass of bubbly for me, we moved onto a bottle of red from Montefalco, a town we had all visited in 2006 on a trip to see Susie when she was living in Rome. (Fellow Cru alum John Slover is offering a half-bottle international wine list.)

The menu is vast and offers almost a mind-numbing array of choices. There will be tough decisions made at your table. Don’t go with anyone who is indecisive or you may be there until morning. Our waiter, who seemed to be bouncing off the walls, electrified with frantic stress, came over and immediately directed (read: ordered) us to the items on the menu we must have. Now, I don’t mind getting feedback from servers about what the chef’s signatures are or even what their favorite dishes are, but this fellow gave us more of a directive, racing through each category with the four dishes we should be ordering from each. He seems quite disappointed when we told him we would take some time to look over the menu and let him know what we actually wanted. While we did agree with him and chose many of his suggestions, his manner was not quite right. He stressed us out.

That aside, I would repeat our meal down to the breadcrumbs from the smoky grilled bread that is plucked from the embers of the hearth. It is unfortunately served with a whipped truffle butter, which is overkill and completely unnecessary. Butter would have been fine. I really don’t need truffles overwhelming the simplicity of good grilled bread. I realize I am probably alone on this, but I am one for leaving the truffle to the pigs.

We started out with some antipasta, including the burrata, a creamy puddle of milky mozzarella served with more of that fine grilled bread, and two clever accompaniments: a sweet onion jam and a peppery pesto made from broccoli rabe ($16). It’s divine to play all those flavors off one another in one bite. We also loved the roasted veal meatballs. They are fluffy and moist, and slightly charred so they have a little sweetness in the crust. I would have paid for a nice hero roll to tuck them into. They would make a great sandwich. But there were only two per order and sharing was a true hardship.

Roasted baby artichokes seemed fried to me (this is not a complaint), and were served salad-like, punctuated with white vinegar, a bright acidity that plays well with the pecorino and cherry tomatoes. A pair of delicate, buttery crespelles (crepes) arrives swelling with a mix of ricotta, spinach, parsley, and zucchini all set in a sweet tomato sauce. They were outstanding, like the more highbrow, more cultured cousin of manicotti ($12). Any of these dishes could be had at the bar with a glass of wine for a simple weeknight supper if the bar were not such a zoo. But the people know a good thing and they are not staying away. The dining room was similarly buzzing, with tables of young and old (and somewhere in between) enjoying the cheek-flushing heat of a blazing fire on a night when the city’s streets were frigid.

More fun comes with the pastas. Those who have trouble figuring out what to say “no” to will not want to approach his list; it includes ten choices. Oy! And each can be made into a half-order. Portions are large so half orders are really quite enough. Adrienne had two halves and each one could have easily been enough. The caccio e peppe ($10/17) is, as you’d expect from a pasta that’s tugged through a wheel of cheese, rich bordering on risky. The pasta is perfect cooked so it’s just slightly al dente and dressed in a sauce that is as cheesy as it is peppery, but it’s gotta be served with a side of angioplasty. Ditto the potato gnocchi ($15/26), beautifully made in house, with a black truffle butter that is so heavy and creamy it’s practically turned itself into cheese. We also loved the fuzi, a short, twisted, ridged noodle tucked into a rustic mix of housemade sausage, broccoli rabe, plum tomatoes and pecorino ($12/20). It’s the sort of dish made for Sunday suppers with lots of friends and family gathered around. A weekly thanksgiving, Italian style.

At this point in the meal, I needed to use the rest room. I bring this up for a specific reason, and it’s a word of warning about Ciano. The ladies bathrooms are meat lockers. There seems to be a full-blast Arctic wind channeling itself through the ladies room in the rear of the restaurant. I recommend bringing a parka or a large wooly animal to keep you warm while you do what you need to do. I don’t dawdle when I am in a public rest room, and I was in and out in less than 3 minutes, but I felt like I needed to be thawed out in front of the fire when I finally got out. Perhaps they can build a fireplace in the restroom? Or at least employ some heat.

Back at the table, I was warmed from the inside out by the best dish of the evening. I have two words for you that must be uttered next time you find yourself at a table at Ciano: lamb chops! Gallante’s are the otherworldly. Tender, juicy, and just luscious, they are served on a hash of sorts crafted from braised lamb belly, Swiss chard, caramelized fennel, and apple. Tada! What magic. The only odd thing about this dish is that the chef cuts the chops off the bones and sends the severed rack out on the side, I guess as evidence of his butchering technique? The bones are beautifully frenched, but they kind of look funny just sitting there on a plate severed from their meaty chops. Not sure what that’s about, but if you have a dog or someone at home who likes to chew on bones, this will make a nice token to return with. Sea bass was also good, an object of beauty: a plump alabaster fillet topped with a tapenade set in a vivid tomato and herb broth bobbing with fat black gigante beans ($28). But it could not compete with those phenomenal chops.   

After our dinner was cleared, we contemplated dessert, but were too full to entertain anything more. While we waited for our check, we scrolled through a little iPod touch slide show that Susie had made of the various moments in our many years of friendships: dinners out, summer in the North Fork, vacations in Italy and Brazil, and Sunday brunches across the city. We have known each other a long time and through many different phases of life. As we sat at Ciano, swiping fingertips over the glass of a machine the size of a deck of cards, moving from moment to moment, I felt incredibly lucky to have shared all those times together. To be honest, there was also a sadness, because those times have become fewer and much farther in between. There is a change there that’s inevitable. Gone are the days when the four of us held our carefree chocolate-dipped French fry gatherings at Beppe. It’s what happens when you become a mother. And let me tell you, for me at least, motherhood is a complicated animal. The gift of my daughter Emily is one I would not trade for the world but I’d be lying if I said that I never missed the old days when I could run my life as a one-woman show. I miss the frivolity. I miss the nights out. Like Beppe, my life has evolved into something else. It’s not the same, but it’s quite wonderful. All the change in the world can’t erase the moments that came before and the ones still to come.

Ciano is located at 45 E 22nd Street, 212-982-8422.

Andrea Strong