During the summer, take advantage of the fabulous flavor of Portofino's cold tomato salads and antipasti.

PORTOFINO'S ITALIAN RESTAURANT Location: 5126 Park Road in the Park Selwyn Terrace shopping center. Phone: 704-527-0702 Details: Take out; catering service available; reservations accepted for parties of six or more; full bar and wine list; corkage fee - $6.50. Entrée price range: Lunch, $6-$10; dinner, $8-$16. Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

If truly great, traditional, yet reasonably priced, Italian fare is what you seek, then it is time to eat at Portofino's Italian Restaurant.

Along with the location that opened about a year ago in Park Selwyn Terrace between SouthPark and Park Road Shopping Center, the original location opened about seven years ago on Eastway Drive. Both locations are slightly hidden gems, each tucked into the center of rambling strip malls. Portofino's could be considered strip mall dining at its finest. Not fine in the sense of fancy, but simply fine in the sense of good homemade fare, served in warm and friendly, make-yourself-at-home surroundings.

Portofino's is a dream come true - the heart and soul of brother and sister "Giosue" or Josh and Camela Coppola. They partnered with friend Gino Villano, originally of Winston-Salem, to make Portofino's a reality. Born in Italy, Josh Coppola came to this country to live in New Jersey with an older brother when he was just 14. Camela joined her two brothers six years later, when she was 13. The siblings grew up working with family in the restaurant business in Freehold, N.J.

"The recipes were old family recipes, and we learned about the business end of things working with our older brother. As we moved on, we learned more and experienced more," Camela said.

After many years of living and working in the New Jersey restaurant business, Josh came to Winston-Salem to visit Villano, who also made his living working in restaurants. The two saw the opportunity to do something together in Charlotte. They decided to take the risk and start their own place. Josh and Camela moved to North Carolina and put everything they had into the Eastway Drive Portofino's location.

"We started out doing all of the cooking, the serving and even the dishwashing," said Camela. "We were broke and tried as hard as we could to make Portofino's work." The hard work paid off as word of mouth spread about the fine Italian food made from scratch by real Italians. Camela is still amused at the public's surprise as to her heritage. "When we moved here, all of the Italian restaurants in Charlotte were owned by Greek families. Italians used to call on the phone and speak to me in Italian to make sure I was really from Italy."

RATING SCALE Excellent, a must try. Above average, worth consideration. Average, but nothing spectacular. Just okay. Poor, not recommended.

Following their success with the first restaurant, the partners opened another location in Gastonia. "It did quite well, but we got tired of the drive back and forth. So, we sold that location a couple of years ago to people we had trained, and then we decided to open another Charlotte location on Park Road." Regular customers go back and forth between locations, depending on where they work or live. While the Park Road location is newer and larger, with a separate bar area, both dining rooms get crowded and a little loud on busy evenings.

On the menu there are cold and hot appetizers, or antipasti, plus seasonal favorites. Take advantage of the fine fresh flavor of the salads - the side salad, the tossed salad and particularly the Caprese - a plate of soft and creamy buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes with fresh basil. Eat all you can during these last fleeting weeks of summer. The reason? Tomatoes. These dishes are all made with fresh chopped or sliced tomatoes and the cold, hard pink tomatoes of fall, winter and spring do not do them justice. In those non-tomato months, try the fried calamari instead, served with one of the finest marinara sauces in the city, or the mussels marinara. Be sure to ask for plenty of hot fresh bread with butter to dip in any leftover sauce.

If you want to try a variety of Portofino's finest appetizers, go for the hot combination platter. It's a delightful assortment of stuffed eggplant, stuffed mushrooms, jumbo butterflied shrimp, mussels and stuffed clams. Of the assortment, the clams, made with bread stuffing, were perhaps my least favorite. In their defense, there was nothing really wrong with them, their flavor, however, just paled in comparison with everything else on the platter.

Entrées include the classic offerings of chicken and veal, seafood and pasta, each done almost a dozen different ways.

If chicken and veal tempt your palate, the piquant piccata, made with white wine, lemon and mushrooms, is quite good, as is the rich, full-flavored Francese in which the chicken or veal is dipped in egg and flour, then sautéed with the same white wine, lemon and mushroom mix. The Pizzaiola, a sauté with white wine, fresh garlic, tomato, olives, capers and fresh herbs, is also a winner.

As seafood selections go, the Shrimp Parmesan was probably the biggest surprise and the favorite entrée of our evening at Portofino's. Rich, sweet, tender, extremely large fresh shrimp were lightly breaded and fried then bathed under a blanket of equally rich creamy mozzarella. A generous topping of homemade marinara sauce over a side of angel hair pasta completed the picture. It was absolutely delicious.

The pizzas, real thin-crust New York-style pizzas, are good too. The crust is handmade with the same dough Portofino's uses to make their bread. Each pizza is hand-tossed to order. There's Sicilian pizza, available in large size only, and a Stromboli and a Calzone, both in medium and large sizes, depending on the size of your appetite!

As good as the classic entrées and pizzas are, the pasta offerings at Portofino's are unique. You can really suit yourself by selecting your choice of pasta - choose from penne, capellini, fettuccini, linguini, or spaghetti - and then choose your favorite sauce. There are 15 sauces - five with meat, two with seafood and eight vegetarian.

Along with cheese or meat ravioli served in a flavorful tomato sauce, the menu offers baked ziti, lasagna, stuffed shells, manicotti and eggplant parmigiana.

Desserts include real Italian cheesecake, white and dark chocolate profiteroles and a delicious homemade tiramisu.

This trio of desserts makes the end of a meal at Portofino's something special. Pictured here are chocolate profiteroles, front; tiramisu, left; and New York-style cheesecake.

Well-known Charlotte restaurant critic, food writer, cooking instructor and connoisseur of food and wine, Heidi Edidin writes "South Charlotte Weekly: Culinary Corner," a restaurant review or food feature that appears weekly. Contact Heidi with questions and restaurant, food or story ideas by email at heidi@southcharlotteweekly.com.

SCW photos by Sean Busher.

This article first appeared in "South Charlotte Weekly" on August 8, 2003. "South Charlotte Weekly" is a free, locally owned, independent newspaper that's "About the Community, For the Community," available every Thursday in South Charlotte and Uptown.

Copyright 2003 by South Charlotte Weekly and WSOCTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.