The cool, casual space is drop-dead gorgeous and the food is homey Italiana from a Mark McEwan alumnus who keeps a salumeria (glass cold room) full of house-made sausages and hams. His salads (such as orange and shaved beet with radish and red onion) are sexy, his pastas are superb and the desserts are divine. Best is crostatina Ontario buffalo ricotta barely sweetened in tender pulverized almond crust with poached pears and delicate honey sauce. These are flavours that shout joy from the rooftops

Although Buca is so much more than a pizza and pasta parlour, they do great credit to things farinaceous. Agnolotti are splendid pasta stuffed with veal, grana padano and mortadella in a pool of veal ragu with deep, sweet meat savour. They do fab thin-crust pizza, the most entertaining of which is topped with rich tomato sauce, perfectly cooked fresh clams and chewy/sweet strips of house-cured sausage.

The servers are Italian charmers and not too hard on the eyes either. Ours says things like Will you trust me? when he suggests leavening all the salt and grease with a salad of orange and shaved beet with radish and red onion. Will we trust him? To the moon and back. And doing so is warranted The orange and beet salad is a knife-edge balance of sweet and tangy, just sharp enough to cut the meat fat.

Chef Gentile understands fish too. His orata (sea bream) is perfectly cooked and jazzed with lightly preserved lemon and big, cracked dark green olives. His only miscalculations are overcooked carciofi alla romana artichokes usually stuffed with mint, garlic and parsley but with none of those flavours in evidence. And fried gnocchi are strange, kind of like gnocchi channelling potato chips all air inside like puffed wheat. No taste, no sauce. Just deep-fried.

Buca's desserts are fabulous, even crazy great, especially given that Italian chefs do not always value dessert highly. Baba is a cloud-light rum-soaked confection topped with just-made gossamer frangelico sabayon and a sprinkle of toasted hazelnuts. Cannoli are crispy, crunchy crepes rolled around impeccable dark chocolate cream.

But crostatina ultrafresh, lighter-than-air Ontario buffalo ricotta in a super-tender pulverized almond crust with poached pears and delicate honey sauce stole my heart. These are flavors that shout joy from the rooftops.