il Bracco

A Texas import making its first move beyond home turf, il Bracco is the third location of an Italian concept from Western Addition Restaurant Group, founded by Hillstone alums Robert Quick and Matt Gottlieb. The 5,000-square-foot room runs leather, travertine, terrazzo and brick, hung with more than $100,000 in original artwork from the Quick family's collection, with a marble bar and a fireplace-anchored patio along Scottsdale Road just south of McCormick Ranch. The kitchen makes pasta, bread and desserts from scratch and butchers proteins in-house: spicy gemelli in vodka sauce, crispy baby artichokes, chicken piccata. The Phoenix New Times read it plainly, well-made and top-shelf but playing it safe. Come for confident Italian-American standards and the frozen Bracco, not for reinvention.