Slipping into the restaurant skin that used to be the Walnut Street Supper Club, Cibo Ristorante Italiano, 1227 Walnut St., doesn’t stray very far from the formula of its predecessor.
The space still has that throwback elegant buttoned-up charm and still is the ideal place, theme-wise, to have a meal before or after a show at one of the nearby theaters. The menu is still very centered on Northern Italian cuisine, but Cibo’s menu is more focused on the classics without any of the fusion elements the Supper Club had. The members of the waitstaff are still attentive, friendly and occasionally take the stage at various moments throughout the evening to croon a number with whoever is tickling the ivories that night.
At first glance, besides the name, very little has changed at the restaurant. But a few small details make Cibo fall just the smallest bit short of the magic that the Supper Club accomplished.
The Walnut Street Supper Club didn’t reinvent the wheel with its menu of classic dishes that harkened back to fine dining of the Rat Pack era. But they nailed without fail all the classics perfectly, from the loo to the flavors to the presentations.
Cibo does the same often enough to be quite pleasing, especially during the first courses. The Antipasto Della Casa ($15) was a bountiful array of meats, cheeses and olives that was tasty and large enough to feed a small army. The Insalata Della Casa ($10.50) was classic, a perfectly dressed chopped salad mixed with crabmeat and shrimp.
The only minute flaws came to the surface with the main courses. To Cibo’s credit, they make some damn fine pasta and skillfully cook steak and seafood. Some of the sauces, though, were lackluster. The Filletto Al Brandy ($36), filet mignon in a mushroom brandy sauce, was spot-on. In fact, all of the meat or tomato-based sauces lived up to expectations. The cream sauces, on the other hand, were almost bland and lacked any excitement — not bad but bordering on painfully boring (think senior-cruise buffet Alfredo sauce), which is a shame because the gnocchi gorgonzola ($20) was a perfectly fluffy and light gnocchi that deserved a better sauce. The Filletto Ripeno ($36), filet mignon and crabmeat with brandy cream sauce, should have been a slam-dunk but was hamstrung by a rather dull cream-based sauce.
Any disappointment faded quickly when the dessert cart, piled high with a mouth-watering selection of cakes and tiramisu, came rolling by.
Cibo tells pretty much the same story as the Walnut Street Supper Club: a great, classy place to complete the classic one-two punch of dinner and a show. Its first and third acts are quite satisfying, and if you avoid anything touched by their cream sauce, you’ll thoroughly enjoy their second acts as well.