Review: Ca’Bianca

Ca'Bianca's Cannelloni di Pollo. (Crista Jeremiason/PD)

For most of its history since ancient times, Italy was a collection of chauvinistic city states, each with its own dialect of the Italian language, its local loyalties and its local culinary traditions. Then, in the 19th Century, Giuseppe Garibaldi and others led the Resurgence that resulted in the unification of these states into the country we know as Italy today.

Thankfully, people in those regions kept many of their local culinary traditions, and Italian cooking is still an eclectic mix of styles that depends in large part on geography. After all, Venice, Verona, Milan and Turin are closer to Munich than to Rome. What makes these styles Italian is a shared love of pasta and a preternatural genius for good cooking.

At Ca’Bianca, the Italian restaurant in Santa Rosa, this eclecticism is on display in the menu put together by the owners, husband-and-wife team Marco Diana and Karin Hoehne. Even his Italian and her German heritage reflect the influences of northern Italy.

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For instance, a pasta dish that has been on the menu for more than a decade is fusilli with salmon and asparagus in a vodka-cream sauce. Northern Italy is dairy country, hence dishes with cream and butter. Regions farther south tend to rely on olive oil for cooking and dressing ingredients, such as linguini with clams, garlic, fresh tomato and white wine.

Their linguini would pair beautifully with the 2009 Greco di Tufo from Campania, a white wine grown in the volcanic soils near Mount Vesuvius. A bottle is just $29, and you’ll find many bottles nicely priced on the wine list. Yes, there are plenty of local wines, but also dozens of Italian wines.

If you’ve never had an amarone, try the 2008 Luigi Righetti for $60, or to see what Italian varieties can do here, buy a bottle of the well-aged 2004 Aglianico, an Italian red variety from Seghesio winery in Healdsburg for $52. Or bring your own and pay $15 corkage.

Ca’Bianca’s setting is the restored Marshall House, an 1876 Victorian mansion that is an outstanding example of the workmanship lavished on homes for the wealthy in that era. Notice the detail in the ceramic fireplaces, the carved ceiling moldings, crystal chandeliers, inlaid floors and stained glass. A side porch has been closed in and gives the restaurant an extra complement of tables. Those are real roses in the bud vases on the tables, too.

An appetizer of Baked Polenta ($9 **) features a slice of the typically Italian cornmeal topped with gorgonzola cheese and a rich tomato sauce. It has been baked so the cheese melts and flows down over the cornmeal, which becomes soggy from the liquid in the sauce. It tastes great, but maybe if the polenta were fried before baking it would better resist the tomato sauce.

An appetizer called Impepata ($11 **) is a bowl of eight cherrystone clams and eight undersized mussels sautéed with leeks, garlic and saffron in a lightly spicy tomato sauce. Toasted flatbread wedges are spread with pesto and accompany the shellfish.

Avocado Salad

With the Avocado Salad ($9 ***), things looked up. Half an avocado is spooned out of its skin, cut into slices and splayed out on a plate with caramelized red onions, pitted kalamata olives, chunks of ripe tomato and basil threads drizzled with olive oil.

Then came the pastas. Fluted tubes of Rigatoni ($17 **½) were studded with hunks of good Italian sausage spiced with fennel seed, sauced with rich marinara lightened with a little cream, and tossed with fresh garden peas and sliced mushrooms. A generous plate of Gnocchi ($18 **½) in a savory lamb sauce was redolent of rosemary. It had a rich, satisfying taste, although the gnocchi were small and chewy and less than cloudlike.

For a Scaloppine ($23 ***), the kitchen uses thin scallops of pork tenderloin rather than the more classic veal, and that’s a fine substitution, although pork doesn’t have quite the unctuous quality of veal. The sauce is a wine and butter reduction flavored with a bit of gorgonzola. What appear to be lardons on top are pieces of cooked pear. Vegetables on the plate — carrots, asparagus and red bell pepper — are cooked with restraint, so they have their texture and flavor intact. The plate is finished with a helping of polenta.

Cannelloni di Pollo ($18 **) was a surprise, because the two cannelloni tubes were stuffed with ground chicken and herbs and baked in a creamy tomato sauce. Typically the chicken is shredded or chunky. Grinding the chicken to the consistency of hamburger changes the flavor as well as the texture of the dish, and not always in a way that’s pleasing.

Sfogliatina di Mele

Italian desserts are very unique, and here there are many favorites to choose from: tiramisu, panna cotta, semifreddo all’ espresso, cannoli alla Siciliana, affogato al caffe and Sfogliatina di Mele ($8 ***), a puff pastry topped with caramelized apples and a scoop of cinnamon gelato. Heavenly.

To sum up: Good Italian food in a sumptuous setting.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.

CA’BIANCA
Where: 835 Second St., Santa Rosa
When: Lunch Mondays through Fridays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dinner nightly from 5 to 9 p.m., except to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Reservations: Call 542-5800.
Price range: Moderate to very expensive, with entrees from $17 to $27.
Website: cabianca.com

Wine list: ***
Ambiance: ***½
Service: ***
Food: **½
Overall: ***

**** Extraordinary
*** Very good
** Good
* Not very good
0 Terrible