Spicy hot tomato oil. That was all we knew about Pastabilities before our recent Wednesday evening visit, but it was enough to make us look forward to dinner there. A friend had given us a jar of the restaurant's invention two years before, and it was everything we love about Italian food: deeply flavorful, spicy, rich and versatile.

We only hoped dinner would meet the expectations created by that introduction. In almost every respect, it did. Pastabilities has a full bar and offers a cocktail list ($9-$15) as well as beers ($4-$9.50) and wines by the glass ($6-$11) or bottle ($23-$250). An Italian wine seemed appropriate, so we chose the Montepulciano Riserva Zaccagnini DOC, Abruzzo, Italy (2014) offered at $35.