What better place to meet a long-lost friend who’s totally into food and wine than Hope Street’s reliable standby Pizzico? This restaurant has won numerous awards for its wine list, quite a formidable one, with 600 wines from California, Italy, Australia, Spain, Chile, and Portugal. With so many possibilities, our friend, Stuart, took his time choosing a half-bottle of Ducale Chianti Reserve (from Ruffino), with a delightful cherry scent wafting from it. Bill’s French Shiraz was also one of the best I’ve tasted.

To accompany those wines, executive chef Warley Araujo — a Brazilian native trained by former owner and chef Fabrizio Iannucci — has designed a menu that is neither pretentious nor understated. His dishes can be bold or subtle, depending on the ingredients.

We carefully studied the appetizers, which include center-of-the-table plates suitable for sharing. Roasted portobellos over thin Parma prosciutto led the menu, followed by fried calamari; a pizza whose crust contains chestnut flour; an antipasto with fried olives and cannellini beans nestled among more familiar offerings; and frutti di mare ($12.95), which caught our eye.

Pizzico’s version of this seafood medley is outstanding. Four jumbo shrimp are dredged in Cajun spice and grilled, as are a bevy of sea scallops. They sit among a sauce consisting of white wine, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, and four large, steamed mussels. This is served with balsamic-dressed arugula. The sharpness of the greens and the savory pungency of the sauce strike wonderful chords with the sweetness of the seafood.

We also enjoyed an insalata Pizzico ($7.95), which combines tossed baby greens with slices of tomato and English cucumber, roasted asparagus spears, red and yellow roasted peppers, rings of Bermuda onion, and thick clumps of buffalo mozzarella. A delicate vinaigrette topped it off.

Pizzico takes salads up a notch with their insalata grande, entrée salads. One features grilled chicken breast and pistachio nuts with greens and mozzarella; another veal scaloppini over arugula; still others have grilled shrimp or a blackened salmon fillet.

But our appetites had been properly whetted, and we whipped past those lighter items, aiming for the pages that list pastas and meat or seafood entrees (the menu and other info can be found at www.pizzico provri.com). Bill was convinced that one of us should order strozzapreti, for the name alone, meaning "priest-stranglers," looking like pinched ziti, but as luck would have it, he ended up with the corkscrew-shaped tubes called cavatappi as a side dish to his chicken, a customer favorite at Pizzico called pollo di Paulo ($18.95). This is a boneless breast of chicken, stuffed with prosciutto, mozzarella, and roasted red and yellow peppers. It is lightly breaded and baked, then smothered in a sauce that has layers of flavor from garlic, shallots, mushrooms, and Marsala. Simultaneously gourmet and comfort food.

Stuart and I both headed toward meatless pastas. His risotto al funghi ($16.95) had plenty of porcini and wild mushrooms to fulfill its fungi title, but it also had a wonderfully smoky undertone, a combination of tomato broth, Parmesan cheese, and truffled olive oil. It seemed as hearty as venison. My tortelloni di zucca ($15.95) were soft pasta pockets filled with pumpkin in a pesto sauce jazzed up with bits of fresh tomato and cream. Quite delicious.

Heading toward dessert land, we all looked at our plates and quickly decided on take-home containers for half or more of our entrees. Stuart landed on a dish of hazelnut gelato ($6.50) that was terrific; Bill stuck with a cappuccino; and I ordered the chocolate polenta pudding cake ($9). The two of us knew that Bill might be the winner in getting samples from two desserts, as indeed he was.

The Tuscan polenta cake, made with cornmeal, dark chocolate, cinnamon, and orange zest, comes with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. It was good, though the "pudding" in the title led me to think of something molten in the middle. Indeed, I think the flavors might have come up more if it had been warmed.

Other dessert possibilities include a triple chocolate layer cake, pumpkin spice cheesecake, chocolate mousse, a baked apple, chocolate-dipped strawberries, or sorbets. And tiramisu, another item common to most Italian restaurants, but I remember Pizzico’s as a definite version that balances its ingredients nicely.

Nothing could have kept us from enjoying the fine food, excellent wine, and sterling company of this evening. And it was Pizzico that provided two out of those three.