The Gnocchi Calabrese comes with a red sauce of fresh tomatoes and ground homemade sausage.

Benjie Sanders / Arizona Daily Star

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ORO VALLEY — The server put the towering Pope's Pillow on the table, then stood back to see our reaction.

Cibaria Cucina Italiana diners actually call in and reserve the dessert ($5.25 a serving), a deceivingly light towering concoction anchored at top and bottom with flaky puff pastry. The middle is filled with strawberries in a rich sauce, pudding-like bavarian cream and fresh whipped cream.

The Pope's Pillow makes a convincing argument that dinner should follow dessert. Of course there's a catch: All that sugar will surely overburden your taste buds and quench your appetite, leaving little room for the wonderful creations chef/owner Michael Veres has perfected in the six years he has owned Cibaria.

Veres was fresh from the now-closed Daniel's restaurant when he took up residence at Cibaria. He tweaked the menu and injected his philosophies that straddle the borders of northern and southern Italian cuisine.

The emphasis is on simple, starting with the antipasto ($7.50), a plate of salami, prosciutto, cheese, marinated artichokes and calamari olives; and the bruschetta ($6), fresh diced tomatoes on a bed of spinach-based spread atop fresh house-made toasted focaccia dusted with Parmesan cheese.

The menu is enviable in its sparseness — there's a generous selection of beef, chicken, veal and seafood dishes but not so many that you feel overwhelmed with decisions.

There's also a healthy dose of house favorites, including the Zuppa di Pesce ($19.25) seafood stew. The steaming bowl boasted a pair of fat tender sea scallops, two enormous shrimp, clams, sweet crab meat and baby shrimp swimming in a simple but bold broth sitting atop a bed of creamy risotto.

Pizza ($7.25 for a small) is done with an artisan's zeal. The dough was crispy on the outside, tender in, and the pie was baked to a bubbly brown with a generous amount of toppings — in our case, half cheese, half pepperoni to satisfy two young diners.

We were disappointed with the special Gnocchi Calabrese ($13.75); there was no evidence of potato in the potato dumplings, which tasted more like leaden balls of dough. Even the kicked-up-with-crushed-red-peppers red sauce of fresh tomatoes and ground homemade sausage couldn't salvage it. The finely ground sausage had an arresting licorice aftertaste that robbed it of the spotlight it deserved.

On a Saturday night follow-up visit, all was forgiven courtesy of the veal marsala ($17.95). The marsala was silky and rich with the flavor of the wine, which complimented the tender pounded veal with perfect restraint. Our server graciously allowed us to substitute linguini for roasted potatoes. The pasta was served with a marinara that tasted so fresh it was conceivable the tomatoes were plucked from the vine only moments before.

There was a similar simple elegance to the pan-seared polla a mare ($16.25). A fork-tender chicken breast is paired with sweet crab meat, small shrimp and diced crisp asparagus. The dish is finished with cheese and a zesty lemon and caper sauce that has a slight but pleasant tartness.

The dessert menu is hit and miss depending on what's available. Outside desserts include cheesecake and a fairly unimpressive chocolate bomb complete with oozing hot chocolate syrup gushing from the middle. Stick to the house-made creations like the Pope's Pillow and the impressive tiramisu, which stands at least three inches high. Layers of lady fingers are soaked judiciously in the coffee with a blanket of whipped cream dusted with cocoa. It ranks as one of the best examples of tiramisu in the area.