Ciao Restaurant, G/F 54 Morrison Hill Road, Wan Chai. Tel: 893-4213. Hours: Noon-3pm, 6.30-11.30pm.
CIAO was never a popular Italian restaurant. Citizens of Happy Valley and Causeway Bay with a craving for pasta would slink past the ancient Caravelle Hotel, look over their shoulder to see if anyone was watching, and then enter, sitting in a dark corner for fear of being sighted.
The restaurant can't have been all that terrible, because it has survived since 1982. But nobody had a good word to say about Ciao. It was a little musty, the food was uninteresting, and it had anything except character.
The new Ciao - that is, the Ciao with a new manager and a chef direct from Nicholini's - is a different story. For the past three months, people have been telling me a different story . . . that it's worth a visit, that the food's excellent, not terriblyexpensive, and actually fun.
The ''fun'' part didn't quite match up to expectations on the Saturday evening I treated some friends to a farewell dinner at the restaurant. At 8.30, the smallish room was practically deserted save for one table. This meant that manager Antonio Ho couldserve us himself.
He was all charm. Apologetic when ingredients weren't available, happy when we said we liked certain dishes, ready to improve if we came again.
With a few exceptions, our meal was ''comfortable'' Italian. The sauces were light and tasty, the pastas were obviously made a few minutes before (not a single dish seemed micro-waved), and we couldn't really complain.