Classic Italian Dining at Ala Moana Center

A hot basket of Italian bread and butter sets a pleasantly old-school tone at this polished Italian restaurant in Ala Moana Center. It is a welcome change of pace from a quick mall meal: tables are dressed for a more formal dinner, the lighting is soft, and the menu makes room for the long-running comforts of pasta, veal, chicken, seafood and vegetables.

The setting manages to be refined without becoming stiff. Couples can settle in over wine, families can order across the menu, and a larger group has enough choices that nobody has to compromise on a single style of dish. Lunch works here, too, when a full plate of pasta sounds better than another food-court lap.

This is traditional Italian fare rather than a Hawaiian-Italian crossover menu. The kitchen's range is useful on a mixed table: one person can stay with a classic chicken entrée while another goes for seafood pasta, a veal dish or a vegetable-centered plate.

Chicken Parmesan has appeared with angel-hair pasta and meat sauce, a familiar, satisfying pairing that gives the breaded chicken plenty of company on the plate. Eggplant alla Parmigiana offers another classic route for diners who want the bubbling, tomato-and-cheese side of Italian dining without ordering meat.

Chicken Marsala is listed with linguine as its standard pasta accompaniment. Veal fans have choices including veal alla Sorrentino and veal alla Marsala, dishes that make the restaurant a particularly good stop for people who miss seeing veal treated as a regular part of an Italian menu.

The pasta list moves comfortably between sausage, seafood and combinations involving chicken, veal and vegetables. A sausage olio has been notable for its large pieces of sausage and its notably abundant serving. A chicken-and-shrimp Diablo special has also appeared among the offerings, adding a little heat to the otherwise classic lineup.

Many dishes come in small and large portions, an unusually practical option when the table is divided between moderate appetites and diners ready for a full dinner. The smaller serving is not a token portion; it can still be filling enough to make a complete meal.

The large pasta portions are serious business. They can easily turn one restaurant meal into dinner now and lunch later, which softens the decision to order the dish that sounds most appealing instead of the one that seems safest for your appetite.

That flexibility also makes sharing and sampling more relaxed. A table can order different preparations without every person committing to the same size plate, and the range of chicken, veal, seafood and vegetable dishes gives a group plenty of ways to build a varied meal.

Inside the mall setting, the dining room is spacious and softly lit, with more of a restaurant-destination atmosphere than a stop between errands. Guests sit over plates, drinks and conversation rather than competing with prominent background music.

At busier dinner periods, the room can naturally become livelier and louder. Even then, the overall tone is calm rather than hurried, suited to a meal where you might begin with bread, take your time choosing wine, and linger over a generous entrée.

Service follows that same full-meal rhythm. Bread, drinks and cleared plates are attended to throughout the visit, with prompt, comprehensive service from arrival through the end of dinner.

The wine list is fairly extensive, with both continental selections and Napa wines. That gives the meal more options than a simple glass-of-house-wine routine, especially when the table has ordered across several corners of the menu.

A bottle can make sense for a group working through pasta, seafood and chicken dishes, while a single pour keeps a casual lunch from becoming overly elaborate. Either way, the wine program fits the room's white-tablecloth sensibility without changing the restaurant into an occasion-only destination.

The restaurant is in Ala Moana Center near Macy's, on or near the mall's first-level restaurant area. It is a shopping-center location rather than a standalone street-front restaurant, so arrival happens through the mall and its parking areas.

Mall parking includes free lot and garage options, a useful convenience for a lunch meeting, family dinner or evening out. Indoor dining accommodates different group sizes, from a pair at dinner to a larger family table.

Dinner can be busiest, and reservations are worth considering for a peak-time meal. A walk-in party has been seated after a short wait during a busy dinner, but that is best viewed as an encouraging possibility rather than a standard timetable.

On a Friday evening, the outing can continue with fireworks viewing from the parking area after dinner. It is a simple local add-on when the timing lines up: finish the pasta, collect the leftovers, and let the evening stretch a little longer.