SHAY BARNHART The Roanoke Times

Ceritano's Ristorante in Blacksburg offers authentic Italian dishes, from homemade bread to a myriad of pastas to homemade gelato in various flavors.

Ceritano's Ristorante on Main Street in downtown Blacksburg offers fine fare in a comfortable setting.

The restaurant boasts a wood-fired brick oven, expertly constructed by the owner and his family. Ceritano's offers clean, authentic Italian dishes, from homemade bread to a myriad of pastas to homemade gelato in various flavors.

My friend and I chose to share two dishes, the pizza alla Salsiccia and the roasted grouper, both of which are cooked in the wood oven.

While we waited for our main courses, we enjoyed a simple, clean bruschetta -- homemade, wood-oven baked bread topped with marinated, diced tomatoes.

The pizza was a splendid marriage of quality ingredients, each one of which would be outstanding by itself. I was particularly fond of the homemade Italian sausage that has just enough of a hint of fennel as to not mask the flavor of the meat, sliced just thin enough to crisp slightly in the oven.

The fish was a healthy portion of grouper topped with paper-thin potato slices, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with herbs. The oven-crisped potatoes give the fish a texture like batter-dipped fried fish, without the heaviness of excess grease.

We followed our meal with a digestif of espresso made from imported Italian espresso beans lightly roasted in the Mediterranean style, and a glass of sweet, citrusy Tuaca on the rocks.

We then sample some of the homemade gelato. Although it was not made with cream, the pistachio gelato felt satisfyingly creamy, light with a nutty aftertaste. I also tried the grapefruit sorbet and found its flavor as bright and intense as its pink color -- a nice finish to a classy meal.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the meal was the European dining ambiance.

Ceritano's boasts a full service bar along the back wall. The bar itself and the familiar scent of hardwood smoke draw the eyes along the back wall, over to the cheery glow of the wood burning in the brick oven.

The effect is an instant throwback to an Italian cafe, where you would likely find two older gentlemen seated at the bar talking, one sipping an espresso, the other nursing a cloudy Sambuca.

Ceritano's offers Italian dining -- not merely an elegantly simple, light combination of ingredients but an entirely different attitude when it comes to dining. Here one is not ushered in the door, fed and tossed out.

At Ceritano's, provision is made for the pure, casual enjoyment of great food, prepared using time-honored recipes, carefully chosen ingredients and expert techniques.