REVIEW
Above: The Tuscan kale and bean soup is delicious enough to warrant weekly return visits. Left: A glass of Sicilian Morgante Nero d’Avola is the perfect accompaniment to the flavorful chicken parmigiana.
SAY CIAO TO CHOWTIME Cibo e Beve is your Italian-American home away from home STORY:
Rebecca Cha
PHOTOS: Sara
58
Hanna
May 2019 | Simply Buckhead
H
aving spent a quarter of my life traveling Italy with the sole purpose of consuming cibo e beve (“food and drink”), I perhaps had unrealistically high expectations for Cibo e Beve, a Sandy Springs trattoria that’s much more cozy and authentic than its strip mall locale may suggest. Helmed by chef and co-owner Linda Harrell, along with partners Gianni Betti
and Gonzalo de Aristegui, it’s a solidly run operation with an ever-crowded dining room. That’s not to say that there aren’t areas where they could tighten up their game a bit. For starters (and not the edible kind), on our first visit, the dining room carried an odor of fried food that was so heavy, it seemed to permeate the walls, upholstery and eventually our mood. When queried about the ingredients in and origins of various menu items, our server drew a blank and had to run back to the kitchen, but cheerfully returned with the requested info. These unpropitious first impressions aside, there was much to love about the space, decorated with intimate nooks and attractive tables, all brought together with warm earth tones, butterscotch leather, splashes of greenery and token reminders of Italy. It’s all quite comely, and reminiscent of my favorite family-run spots in Emilia-Romagna, Rome and Umbria. When it came to the actual cibo e beve, we resisted the urge to order one of the piping-hot wood-fired pizzas that flew by with impressive regularity and instead opted for the Cibo meatballs, two melt-in-yourmouth behemoths made with ricotta, herby breadcrumbs and seasoned ground meat served with a spectacular San Marzano tomato sauce. Next up was a selection of Italian olives, a portion that could’ve easily fed four. Taggiasche, Castelvetrano and Gaeta were served with toasted semolina crostini and were suitably briny, pungent and earthy, and proved the quintessential complement to a glass of crisp, white 2017 Santa Margherita Vermentino. The execution of the main dishes proved to be a tad, well, quirky. Take, for example, the huge plate of braised short rib ragu with spinach ravioli. The ragu was impeccable (meaty, tender and oozing with longcooked flavors), but the ravioli would be, by any account, considered spinach overkill and were totally obscured by the ragu— nary a smidge of al dente pasta goodness could be seen. More conscientious plating would’ve significantly improved this dish. The silver lining was the dessert. Classics such as torta della nonna (“grandmother’s cake”), semifreddo and gelato round out the menu, but the table favorite was the housemade tiramisu. On par with any of the best in
