ZaZa's Cucina combines fine service and fine food

We recently visited ZaZa's Cucina, a snazzy Italian restaurant on Route 13 across from Purity Ice Cream. If you've been in the area for a while, you may remember the old Video Ithaca building;. It doesn't look that different on the outside, but the inside has undergone a complete transformation. The restaurant has a sunken central dining area, and the surrounding ledge features an attractive bar, an opening into the gleaming kitchen, the hostess station near the main door on the end of the building, and a number of additional tables.

Since ZaZa's opened, we haven't heard anyone comment that they didn't like the food; at worst, people felt it was a bit pricey, or that the portions didn't match the prices.

Well, ZaZa's isn't a budget eatery by any stretch of the imagination. Dinner can easily cost 15 to 30 dollars per person, before drinks or a bottle of wine. The RIGHT way to dine at ZaZa's is to have an appetizer, and a pasta or risotto course, the primo, and then an entree, the secondo. This means you don't WANT any of the portions to be too big. But the good news is that no one needs to eat all of this. Even I split an appetizer and a pasta with my dining companion, and then still saved half of my entree for lunch the next day. When you're sharing and taking home leftovers, the prices are easier to manage.

And there's no question the experience is worth the price for a special occasion such as a birthday or friends visiting town, or just a relaxing mid-week treat.. The food is all exquisite, the presentation beautiful, and the service expert and attentive. Our waiter, Jonathan, helped us make some decisions along the way, and never steered us wrong. When my dining companion stepped away from the table for a few moments, he even descended like a flash and refolded her napkin... a classy touch largely missing from Ithaca's eateries.

We started with the special appetizer, tender shrimp and scallops in a gorgonzola cream sauce. There was plenty of sauce for bread dipping after the seafood was gone. Our primo was the rigatoni all'amitriciana, pasta in a traditional Roman sauce with smoked bacon, plum tomatoes, and grated romano. And my secondo was the pan-seared veal paillard, crisp and perfect with a tangy balsamic reduction, arugula leaves, tiny tomato halves, and thin shavings of fresh parmigiano reggiano cheese. The combination was out of this world.

ZaZa's has an extensive wine list from all over the world... not just Italy and California... though we'd like to see more of the fine Finger Lakes wineries represented. Our waiter Jonathan's suggestion to have the tiramisu for dessert was as on target as his wine recommendation.