Coppola's Ristorante & Banquet Facility

The Filleto Riviera says plainly what this kitchen is reaching for: a ten-ounce AAA filet mignon crowned with a Portobello stuffed with crab, mushroom and Asiago, a steakhouse flourish set down without apology in the middle of an Italian dinner menu. Coppola's Ristorante & Banquet Facility carries that range across the whole card — antipasti and homemade pasta on one side, pizza, lamb, salmon and filet on the other. On Carlton Street in St. Catharines, it is built less for the solo craving than for the table that arrives with five different appetites and a reason to be out: a date, a birthday, a family that wanted to eat well together.

The pasta is where the kitchen shows its hand. Gnocchi Amalfitano arrives homemade, tangled with smoked chicken, shrimp and fresh tomatoes; Ravioli Tartufo con Fungi is jumbo cheese ravioli pulled through a truffled garlic cream with wild mushrooms; the Four Cheese Lasagna layers mozzarella, Padano, Asiago and ricotta under a choice of tomato or meat sauce. The starters hold their own — Calamari Fritti with a house lemon aioli, Arancini di Riso fried golden over tomato sauce, and Mozzarella en Camice, fresh mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto, grilled and finished with reduced balsamic. Bigger plates reach past the pasta entirely, from the hazelnut-crusted Agnello al Forno — an eight-bone rack of lamb with rosemary and roasted-garlic jus — to a pan-seared Faroe Island salmon under chili butter.