2 stars for Italian at Cibo Wine Bar in Coral Gables

Jodi Mailander Farrell3/6/2012

Cibo Wine Bar in Coral Gables raises great expectations. The affable manager stops by for courteous conversation while crusty, complimentary bread is delivered on a cutting board with olives and a big jug of rosemary-infused olive oil. Even ordering wine from the 250-plus bottle list is a production. A woman dressed in black glides up and down a suspended wire like a Cirque du Soleil act to retrieve selections from a glass-enclosed, floor-to-ceiling storage wall. But no amount of toe pointing and twirling by a wine waitress on a zip line can distract from the fact that many of the Italian dishes don’t match their charming surroundings.

Ambience: The lighting, from flickering flames in mason jars and a glowing corner pizza oven, is just so.  Deep and inviting booths with lumbar pillows create cozy, bricked-in alcoves, each with its own rustic table. There’s also an elegant bar and scattered wooden tables, both inside and out.

What Worked

• Sold salads and thin-crust pizzas
• Deep-fried zucchini and artichoke  with two zesty aioli sauces, one flavored with roasted red pepper and the other with lemon and lime
• Surprisingly savory and not overly sweet pear and Gorgonzola pizza drizzled with honey
• Arugula salad with radicchio, endives, sliced portobello mushrooms, big, salty Parmesan shavings and a well-balanced sheen from lemon and olive oil

  Cloud-like semifreddo with frangelico zabaglione with a hint of lemon

• Wonderfully intense house-made gelato, particularly the hazelnut

What Didn't Work

• Rigatoni in Bolognese sauce
• Disappointng mushroom risotto
• A clam and mussel appetizer with diced potatoes in a spicy wine and garlic tomato sauce that failed to live up to its spirited billing
• Flavor-lacking chianti-braised, porcini-crusted short ribs
• A weekly linguine with whole lobster special with  tough and inedible lobter