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I hate goodbyes. But as I enjoy a leisurely Sunday dinner at Gio's, it feels like the last supper.

I don't mean to be melodramatic, but I get this way with food. After four years in Leslieville, my girlfriend and I are moving to the Christie Pits neighbourhood in August. I am excited to explore our new 'hood and develop relationships with all the local purveyors of deliciousness, but at the same time it will be hard to say goodbye to my favourite east end food shops and restaurants.

Gio Rana's Really Really Nice Restaurant is the third spot Rana has hung his trademark fibreglass nose, his proboscis of a shingle, so to speak. (When he was on Yonge Street, everyone called his restaurant "The Nose".)

There is no livelier restaurant in Leslieville, or Toronto for that matter. It's the kind of place where young parents can have their first dinner out with their newborn whilst gay men flirt with the handsome waiters at the next table.

Gio's serves authentically small portions of homespun southern Italian cooking, which encourages both sharing and multi-course feasts. To start, we're having a salad of ripe tomato and creamy mozzarella di buffalo dressed with pesto and balsamic. There's also perfectly charred calamari with an assertive tomato-caper salsa. Bread is procured to wipe the plates clean.

I love a place where pasta is a second course tease rather than a main course stuffing. Al dente penne is bathed in a bright tomato sauce perfumed with garlic and basil. A few shavings of Parmesan lend their nutty flavour.

Main courses favour carnivores, but seafood is not an afterthought. Tilapia is combined with shrimp, fennel, cherry tomatoes and fresh chili, baked "in cartuccio" (i.e. a parchment bag) and brought to the table in a cloud of fragrant steam. It's the perfect treatment for this mild, sustainable fish.

"Sexy" duck leg is a touch dry, however, a pool of braising juices mixed with green olives and caramelized onion comes to the rescue. Its bed of new potatoes crushed with butter and lemon should be listed as a controlled substance.

The Italo-centric wine list has an impressive selection by the glass and is priced with conviviality in mind. The bartender also pours some pretty, yet potent, signature cocktails.

The dessert card is a short list of the usual suspects. I've had better chocolate raspberry tartufo, but I still eat every bite.

Service, as always, is both congenial and efficient. The Visa machine is on the fritz, but it's nothing a couple of free shots of limoncello can't fix.

At the end of our meal, I start thinking about how far our new house is from Gio's. You take the subway from Ossington to Donlands; the Jones bus down to... Yeah, we'll be back.

 

Gio Rana's Really Really Nice Restaurant

1220 Queen St. E. (east of Jones Ave.)

416-469-5225

Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip: $120