Winter Garden's Simply Capri rouses with the coastal cuisine of Amalfi and Southern Italy

Nick Valenti has quite the résumé — James Beard Award winner, chairman emeritus at the Culinary Institute of America and former Patina Restaurant Group (now Delaware North) CEO. He's been responsible for numerous restaurants at Disney, some of which I'm sure he's truly sorry for and others, including Tutto Italia and Via Napoli in Epcot, that consistently fill the bellies of park-goers. Over at Flamingo Crossings Town Center in Horizons West, Valenti's latest concept — Simply Capri — anchors the master-planned, mixed-use complex of retail, shopping and dining. Oh, it's also owned by Disney, which explains the very Disney-like experience we had inside the very Disney-like designed ristorante.

The lovely couple joining me for dinner won the disbenefit of my company by being the highest bidders for the experience in an auction hosted by Shepherd's Hope, a charity offering free healthcare to the needy and uninsured. Having spiffed myself up for the occasion, I nevertheless felt a bit out of place dressed all in black amid Simply Capri's vibrant oranges and grotto blues. Over us, lighting fixtures resembling the tall hats of whirling dervishes clung to the exposed white ceiling, while the gorgeously lit counter with the words "Bar Negroni" written above it practically begged us to order the aperitivo ($12). For a patron dressed in black, a negroni seemed entirely apropos.

"I really like that," said Neeraj, a cardiologist, after a sip. "Balanced, but a bit light on the Malfy gin," I countered as his wife, Anjali, an internist, contentedly sipped her Capri Spritz ($12) before forking into a blob of burrata. It was peppered, splashed with olive oil, served with sun-dried tomatoes and precisely the sort of start we had hoped for. The promising prologue was sustained through a plate of perfetto polpo grigliato ($19) — that's Italian for grilled octopus. A heap of arugula dotted with oven-roasted cherry tomatoes and braced with salmoriglio (it's a sauce of lemon, olive oil and herbs) was just as voraciously devoured as the 'pus. The pair appeared to be enjoying the food and, more importantly for me, enjoying their time as well.

Veal meatballs ($15), seemingly handled with kid gloves while gently poached in tomato sauce, were as comforting an antipasto as the eggplant parmigiana ($15). "The sauce is wonderful," cooed Anjali, "but the eggplant is a bit mushy." She was right, but I tore shreds of focaccia and scooped some of the cheesy sauce nevertheless. "How do you stay so thin and eat so much?" asked the cardiologist. "I really don't know," was my only reply, and I couldn't help but wonder if I'd be a future patient of his. The internist gave me a look and I saw my medical future flashing before my eyes. Thoughts of CT scans and MRIs were, thankfully, broken by our server. I noticed an oval-shaped pin on his shirt, similar to the ones Disney Cast Members wear. "I'm from Torino," he declared, pointing to the city's name printed on his badge. "Most of servers and cooks here are from Italy. The chef tonight, he's from Salerno. Even that oven comes from Naples."

Indeed, the hand-built Acunto pizza oven blistering pizzas at 800 degrees Fahrenheit had me excited to try one their pies, and the margherita ($21) looked every bit the classic. Ingredients were quality and the spotting leopard-like, but the crust wasn't as airy and bubbled as I'd hoped. Either the dough wasn't allowed to ferment for very long, or perhaps it wasn't sufficiently rested. Still, not a bad pie, but Piazza Italia in Lake Nona has nothing to worry about.

Of the two house-made noodz on the menu, neither the "very al dente" scialatielli ($31), as our server described it, nor the caccavelle ($28) impressed us very much. The former, with shrimp, clams, mussels and calamari, drew a shrug from Anjali. "That's OK," consoled Neeraj. "You can still eat a 7 out of 10." The caccavelle didn't score very high either. We expected large pasta shells but what we got was ravioli. Pasta shape aside, the grainy texture of the ricotta filling was what relegated it to the fringes of our table.

The wine list, however, scored top marks. Our server was even kind enough to pour us a glass of Barolo, which wasn't on the "wines by the glass" list. It made the grade when paired with bistecca alla Nerano ($39), a specialty from the Amalfi Coast. Slices of skirt steak served on a zucchini sauce and topped with zucchini chips had Neeraj and me polishing it off quicker than Anjali could say "increased risk of heart disease."

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the respected doctor throwing caution to the wind once dessert arrived: "This tiramisu ($12) might be my favorite dish of the night!" That was before she swooned over the Delizia al limone ($14), a limoncello sponge cake encased in lemon cream. It's the same cake served at the venerable Pasticceria Sal De Riso in Minori, Italy. The night, naturally, ended with shots of limoncello, a digestivo born on the Italian isle. The conclusion from our post-meal debrief: Like the Faraglioni rock formations of Capri, solid.