All in the Family

Thanks to Nickelodeon’s Nick at Nite programming, a whole new generation of Americans can sing the theme song to the old Patty Duke Show, including lyrics such as Where Cathy adores a minuet, the Ballet Russes, and crêpes suzette/Our Patty loves to rock and roll/A hot dog makes her lose control … What a wild duet!

Well, there is a difference between crêpes suzette and hot dogs, just as there were dozens of crazy cultural differences between Patty Lane and Cathy Lane on the 1960s TV series featuring perky Oscar winner Patty Duke chewing up the scenery as two cousins who looked exactly alike (long before Valley of the Dolls and her bipolar diagnosis). But — roll the laugh track here — they were so darn different! Patty was a regular, bubbly, all-American girl-next-door teen queen who really dug Frankie Avalon. And Cathy, who was Scottish, read books and played the bagpipes. What a crazy pair!

Now, thanks to the creativity of the Ohio-based Bravo Development Inc., Kansas City has the culinary version of the Patty Duke Show. It stars two Bravo Cucina Italian Restaurants (which the company describes as “fun, full-service, white-tablecloth casual”) and their slightly more sophisticated cousin, Brio (“full-service, high-energy, white-tablecloth Italian”), which opened a month ago on the Country Club Plaza.

Both restaurants have similar menu offerings, service styles and décor. But Brio is, according to one trade magazine, slightly more costly, with “check averages of $24 at dinner and $14.50 at lunch, compared with Bravo’s averages of $17 at dinner and $10.50 at lunch.”

Nicole Roope, Bravo Development’s marketing director, explained the differences to me this way: “They are very much related conceptually. Brio has a slightly higher check average, has more Tuscan influence as it relates to the menu, design and feel. The menu has more meat items, like whole roasted chickens, lamb chops, veal Limone and several steaks. Brio also offers brunch, and Bravo does not. Bravo is more Roman influenced in design and menu.”

But Tuscan and Roman “influences” aside, having dined at the bustling Brio twice during the holiday crush on the Plaza, I’d say the restaurants are surprisingly similar. They look alike, sound alike and, at times, even smell alike (thanks to the wood-burning pizza ovens).

With 22 Bravo restaurants around the country and 12 Brios, it makes sense that the clever Doody brothers, Chris and Rick (founders of the BDI chain and sons of legendary marketing guru Alton F. Doody), would locate Kansas City’s two “fun and casual” Bravos in the suburbs — Leawood and the Northland — and the grander, more theatrical Brio on the more upscale Plaza.

At 17,200 square feet, it’s one of the biggest restaurants in the city. There are people around who can remember when the building that now houses the Cinemark Palace and Brio was a Sears store. After that, it was a failed minimall called Seville Square, which boasted a handful of now-forgotten restaurant concepts. Fresh success wipes away the stink of failure, though, and no one today wants to recall the Magic Pan or the Peacock Pavilion.

Brio has been so cleverly designed — a curving staircase leading up to second-floor private dining rooms, a terrace, two kitchens, arched colonnades, wrought-iron chandeliers — that it’s easy to imagine that this space has been around since the days of the Medici. Seville what? But there’s a price to pay for the privilege of eating in those oversized dining rooms, with all of the hard surfaces created by the new cypress flooring, Venetian plaster walls and Italian mosaics: It’s probably the noisiest restaurant in town. The clattering of the plates, the hum of all those voices, the occasional wailing of a baby —these things don’t create an atmosphere of, say, intimate dining (though I’ve heard it’s less cacophonous on the outdoor terrace, of all places). On my first dinner in the restaurant, I spent so much time leaning across the table to talk to my friends Fred and Lillis in a civilized manner that I woke up the next day with a painful, stiff neck.

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“In Kansas City,” announced Fred, “noisy means exciting. Noisy means fun.”

I looked at the tables around us and agreed that everyone within spitting distance certainly seemed to be having a gay old time. Even I grudgingly admitted that the place made up for what we lacked in easy conversation with excellent service, surprisingly good food and molto grande portions. They were so large, in fact, that Lillis and I were stuffed after our appetizers and salads. Lillis’ beef carpaccio arrived on a giant platter that was almost too big to fit on our table. “This is an appetizer?” she kept asking the waiter, who nodded patiently as he carefully maneuvered the dish into place in front of her.

The tissue-thin slices of pink beefsteak were neatly layered and scattered with pale shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano and a discreet drizzle of mustard aioli. But Lillis couldn’t even get halfway through the carpaccio, she said, because she’d already eaten an excellent salad and a warm piece of yeasty pane from the silvery basket on the table. Just as they do at cousin Bravo, the servers bring out that bread with a green bottle of dipping sauce made with extra-virgin olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and herbs.

I was impressed that the salads were served in chilled bowls with ice-cold forks. And although the Caesar wasn’t the best I’d ever eaten, my disappointment evaporated at the arrival of my appetizer, the signature mushroom ravioli al forno (which isn’t on the Bravo menu). Generous enough for a complete meal, the plump squares of wood-baked pasta were thickly stuffed with chopped criminis and smothered in a gorgeously rich cream sauce. Fred raved about his slab of wood-grilled salmon, lightly dappled with a lemony pesto and sided with slightly overcooked asparagus.

A few day later, I returned for a late lunch with friends Bob, Stacy and Brian, attended by a server who was, by turns, ebulliently cheery and shamelessly groveling. We adored him! He suggested starting off with the Brio bruschetta, a drippy melted-cheese-on-bread concoction that didn’t quite live up to its dramatic presentation. I was far more impressed with my lunch: a juicy chicken beautifully grilled under a foil-wrapped “cooking brick,” drenched in a sleek marsala sauce and served with “Tuscan mashed potatoes” (meaning they were made, according to one manager, “with lots of garlic and butter”).

Bob’s carbonara, tossed with handmade garganelli pasta, spinach and grilled chicken, was salty, thanks to the generous handful of crumbled bacon in the mix (the only ingredient true to classic carbonara, by the way). Brian loved every bite of his succulent beef-tenderloin sandwich on chewy ciabatta, and Stacy could finish only a couple of wedges of the not very Tuscan grilled-chicken club sandwich.

She did, however, get a second wind when it was time for the torta di cioccolata, a warm pastry hockey puck (think unglazed Hostess Ding Dong) with a bubbly, “molten” center and a topping of vanilla ice cream. It wasn’t too bad, considering that all of Brio’s desserts, including the sorbets, are imported from a commissary in Ohio. Bob’s crème brûlée had more flare, if no literal Tuscan influences. But the mocha-crunch sorbet was distinctly second-rate compared with locally made variations such as the dolce created by Murray’s or Belfonte.

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Other desserts (cheesecake, tiramisu) are the same sweets on the Bravo menu. But don’t let me harp on that. When it comes to these two roaringly successful culinary concepts, giving a lot of bang for the buck is a family affair.