Naples Illustrated

DINING OUT


Big Space for Big Taste


Café Cibo’s new home in Fort Myers makes room for its popularity.


By Chelle Koster Walton


It was immediately apparent why Café Cibo had outgrown its first tiny storefront to move into a space more than double the size late last year. I understood it the moment I tasted the lasagna napoletana when I lunched there shortly after the restaurant’s move a few doors away. Fluffy ricotta, meat ragù, mozzarella and a fresh-tasting, garlic-laced pomodoro sauce layered the generous serving.


Recently I returned with my husband for dinner and found its two dining rooms packed. Already its popularity among Italophiles, including Neapolitans willing to make the drive north, has caught up with its size. Cibo gives you everything you want in a fine Italian restaurant, including reasonable prices and excellent service. Our one small complaint about the evening was the first table where we were seated, in the direct path of kitchen traffic. Our compliant server, however, managed to move to us one table away.

That said, let’s get down to eating, drinking and enjoying. We started with two white Italian wines off the well-selected list. My soft Alois Lageder Chardonnay and my companion’s lighter Greco di Tufo enhanced the three-part dish of bread spreads, especially the salty tapenade.

We started with an appetizer of crabmeat-stuffed scallop and a Caesar salad. Puff pastry encased the fat, juicy scallop and its layers of crab in a baseball-sized orb. It was presented cut in half and wading in lemon beurre blanc. The Caesar salad, too, attained perfection.