Amici: Happy 18th!

A restaurant that's been around for almost two decades is doing a lot of things right, so a good friend and I decided to celebrate Amici's unusually long-lived success tonight. The restaurant is celebrating 18 years with a special 3-course menu and 25% off all bottles of wine, so they're definitely making it worth the customers' while to come in before the 26th when Restaurant Hell Week begins.

We chose to celebrate such a momentous anniversary with a bottle of Franciacorta Bellavista Cuvee Brut and, oh, what lovely bubbles these were. We began with Calimari e Zucchini Fritte, the perfect accompaniment, and moved on to salads: mine was spinach with mushrooms and pancetta and hers was arugula, pear and asiago. The bubbles kept pace. I chose ravioli with spinach and ricotta filling and she chose the special, penne with Gorgonzola and walnuts (and, yes, several of the pastas offered had protein: salmon, shrimp, meat sauce). Did we come anywhere close to finishing these pastas? No, but someone will have a lovely leftover lunch tomorrow. I finished with chocolate mousse, more because I wanted it in theory than because I had any room for it.

It was the first time for both of us at Amici since the extensive renovation and the new space is a huge improvement, handsome and sleek. We had a prime patio table in the corner facing Cary Street, despite a full room when I arrived. The advantage of a later dining schedule is the ability to get a choice table once the first round of diners turns over. Service was excellent and unhurried; good thing, too, because we had lots to discuss: 40 oz. drinkers, the books we're reading and. of course, blogs, specifically the kind absent in rva.

Amici provided an exceptional dining experience for us tonight; my only complaint would be that closing time came too soon. We ended up being the last customers of the night (seems to be happening to me a lot lately) and finally felt obligated to move on so the staff could leave. As it was, they had packed up the outdoor pumpkins and gourds, rolled in the sign and gathered at the bar to await our departure.

But at 18, they're old enough to understand the reasons for our lingering.