Warm welcome

Mirdiffites, let's get this out of the way right now: I know you love the place, and you surely made a concerted choice to live there. But I find the sound of Boeings doing Top Gun-style flyboys while I'm eating pasta so annoying.

Those jets do serve an unexpected purpose, though: the pizza at Pane Caldo, in the quaint streets of UpTown Mirdiff, is so boring that you'll welcome the distraction the underbellies of the fuselages provide.

Luckily, that's the only time you'll need such a diversion, as the rest of the menu at Pane Caldo is delightful. (The name, which inspires fond, comforting images of steaming loaves, means "warm bread" in Italian.)

Staff of life

You'll receive a plate of the stuff (or should I say the staff) as soon as you place your order, and it's a pretty selection of foccacia, that glistening, olive-oil-rich loaf, studded with olives and herbs, and grissini, which are in my book a waste of time, frankly; the bread equivalent of a chopstick and about half as tasty.

But they are an Italian restaurant standard, and when you're ravenous, as we were that day, they bridge the gaps in hunger and, if needed, conversation.

Speaking of your order, Pane Caldo has a clever and delicious take on antipasto, the Italian "before pasta" mix of starters. Take your pick from a selection of hot and cold dishes, and they will be copiously presented to you on a large platter, to leisurely share and pick at.

Crispy, chewy, cheesy

We loved our selection - from the hot, the juiciest, freshest grilled prawns, steaming hot battered calamari and arancini, an ingenious Sicilian recipe for leftover rice: saffron risotto is moulded into little balls, filled with mozzarella cheese, breaded and deep-fried. The deep-yellow pellets (which resemble small oranges, hence the name in Italian) are at once crispy, chewy and cheesy: is there anything more you would want in an appetiser?

The "incredible" (according the menu) caponata (another Sicilian dish of cold stewed aubergine and tomato, served with celery), wasn't bursting with the expected flavour, and hence it was picked over, not devoured. Thin sheets of bresaola, sweet, air-dried beef, sat briefly atop shards of salty parmesan before being drizzled with lemon juice and disappearing into our stomachs - it's a classic that never fails to please.

If the antipasto were heavily influenced by Sicily, then the soups brought a Northern Italian flavour - it was difficult to choose between the pumpkin and spinach and the chickpea with melting taleggio cheese, but we eventually went for the minestrone, which was sold to us on the basis that it contained fresh pesto. The soup was chunky and freshly-made, full of mingling flavours of basil and tomato, and a meal in itself if combined with the huge antipasto platter.

But pizza beckoned, and, on a whim, we took a choice from the "white" pizza menu: without a tomato sauce base. This shouldn't put you off: if the dough is at the right point between crisp and floppy, the cheese is oozing and flavourful and a little lubrication is provided in the form of olive oil, it's like Italian cheese on toast.

Dry disappointment

Too bad for me. The pizza that arrived was, from the first sight, disappointing. It was visibly too dry, for starters, whereas in my opinion a wet pizza is a good pizza, where the toppings begin sliding over your fingers, and juices and oil flow down your arm.

And for some reason, the cherry tomatoes dotted around didn't provide the burst of hot red flavour I was after. A drizzle of chilli oil helped things along, but by that point I was already cheating on my pie with my dining partner's bowl of gnocci. (I should really mention here that this is highly unusual behaviour on my part: pizza never goes uneaten when I'm in the vicinity.)

Gnocci are those chewy, melting bullets of mashed potato dough, treated like a pasta in Italy, where they are teamed with a variety of toppings. Pane Caldo serves gnocci in two ways: with pesto and asparagus, and with pesto cream sauce and shrimp, which we sampled. Very, very naughty: creamy, salty, herby, peppery and with a sweet kick from the shrimp, the sauce was delicious and the gnocci light and delicate.

Fresh fruit with mint jelly was a tempting and refreshing option on the dessert list, but like the silly people we are, my dining partner and I gave into our cravings and opted for creamy sweetness on two counts.

The fondant, a gooey chocolate cake with a molten interior; and Cannoli Sicilini, crisp pastry cigars filled with a tangy-sweet ricotta cream. The cream was a little too runny for my taste, but the sprinkling of crystallised ginger was a sparkling addition.

Pane Caldo - with its outdoor tables under the charming skies of Mirdiff and its cute, mosaic interior - is a neat little place to try some smart Italian food, but the pizza, which is done perfectly well in so many other places, really lets it down. Once they get that sorted out, it really be the planespotter's best option for good cucina Italiana.