The irrepressible Gabriele Penazzi swoops down on us, looking for all the world like Kojak gone Mediterranean. Harrah's had so much confidence in the man, they named the new Italian restaurant in their casino after him. The confidence has not been misplaced.
At first blush, Penazzi, the restaurant, looks like old wine in a new bottle, with a few of the appropriately hokey touches thrown in. As we approach the podium, a guitarist strolls by, playing songs in various Romance languages. The only thing missing is the gondolier.
The room is large, with a high ceiling, inverted bucket-shaped chandeliers and an open kitchen where veteran chef Effren Flores struts his stuff. The ever-present Penazzi is the GM, maitre d' and effusive cabaret host all in one. If the kitchen is the province of the chef here, there is no doubt that in the dining room, it's Penazzi's show.
One original touch here is the menu, presented in the form of a magazine, with Penazzi providing a welcoming message on the opening page. He's from Imola, as he'll tell you himself once you are seated, in the province of Emilia-Romagna, arguably Italy's most famous for food, the home of lasagna, prosciutto and Parmesan cheese.
The menu is large, composed of mostly retro Italian dishes that have one ingredient more than the three-ingredient rule followed by top Italian chefs, and are no threat to the hip, modern Italian stuff you eat at top-toque local Italian places such as Valentino.
Flip a few pages, and you run into the wine list, put together mostly by Penazzi and highlighted by an abundance of delicious Italian wines to go with this food. A first-rate Muller-Thurgau, for instance, a white wine from Trentino, will set you back 50 bucks, and it's worth ordering because it is one you won't see on many Strip lists. If you like red wines, the choices are legion. The best bargains on this list are from Italy's south, an emerging wine area that is still, somehow, given the strength of the euro, affordable.
Penazzi brought the Caterina's antipasto, served for two, over to the table personally, as the waiter brought a basket of wonderfully crusty ciabatta, laced with cheese and black pepper. We could have stopped after the antipasto because it is a feast: Picture vine-ripened grapes paired with aged Provolone, breaded mozzarella, teardrop tomatoes, smoked shrimp, sliced prosciutto, Gouda cheese baked in pastry and marinated eggplant topped with chopped basil and olive oil. Whew. We also tried penazzi terra e mare, a pairing of seared tuna and eggplant caponata, both terrific, and the de rigueur but perfectly prepared fried calamari.
More indulgence is in store should you order from the soup and salad page. The aptly named Penazzi salad is a basic spinach salad laced with Gorgonzola, sun-dried tomato, Italian sausage and balsamic vinaigrette. Zuppa Val Sestriere is a creamy artichoke soup chock-full of artichoke leaves and chunky potato, and it's a real hit.
Pastas are called minestre asciutte on this menu, just to confuse the issue, and they are either disarmingly simple, such as angel-hair pasta with tomato, olive oil and garlic, or overly complicated, like stuffed tortelloni with wild mushrooms, cheeses, white truffle in a creamy Marsala sauce and too much spice. My favorite thing from this page turned out to be a crabmeat risotto, but the soft, pillowy gnocchi aren't bad, either.
Mains tend to be a bit heavy, and like so many Italian restaurants, not quite up to primi, or first courses. I had an old-school dish called petto di pollo alla Sorrentina, from the southern Italian city of Sorrento. I visited Sorrento in May and, believe me, I didn't see a dish like this one: breaded chicken, topped with fried eggplant and tomato sauce, the sort of dish Artie Bucco might serve on The Sopranos.
One friend had rollatini di sogliole alla Don, rolled-up filets of crab-stuffed sole, poached in tomato sauce and garnished with wilted spinach. Also on the table were a perfectly correct rack of lamb and a nice veal chop topped with too many mushrooms and too much sauce. The cooking is fine here, and the products are good, too, but I'd like these dishes more if they showed a little restraint.
Don't look for any respite at dessert. (Unless you consider the panna cotta—baked cream custard scented with verbena and topped with raspberries—as light in this context.) I went for a tiramisu, which had the density of a dwarf star, and a dessert assortment that could sink a battleship.
The menu also sports warm sweet-and-sour cherries, flambéed at table, and something called Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc to you Francophiles), two types of gelato coated with meringue. Kojak never had it this good, I swear.