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• A Celebrity Dining Experience in Champaign-Urbana

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Bacaro Restaurant, April 3, 2007. (Greg Hinchman, Buzz photographer)

The view of Bacaro Wine Bar and Italian Restaurant from Walnut Street is unassuming. It’s a narrow space behind two tall windows with no large signs and only the name of the restaurant printed in small, frosty white letters near the bottom of the frame. The inside is lit with a dim orange glow. Radiohead and other similarly mellow-yet-modern bands play in the background. The bar follows the long, straight lines of the hardwood floor, accentuating the room’s length and giving the restaurant a sleek look where its narrowness might come off as cramped. Filling to the brim on an especially busy Friday night, the restaurant serves as a haunt for local foodies and wine buffs, high rollers splurging on several hundred-plus dollar bottles of wine, and small-town celebrities such as Jimmy John Liautaud — king of the subs-so-fast-you’ll-freak empire — who parks his shining red Ferrari directly outside the front door.

It’s rare to see more than one or two U of I undergrads at Bacaro on a weekend night and even more rare on a weeknight. Maybe it’s the chic look of the space from the front window that shouts, “Adults only!” or “Out of your price range!” but this restaurant is the best place to go for a student looking to avoid the regular campus-bar/fast-food crowd and works especially well to impress a date.

Luckily for students with a limited budget and an appreciation for fine dining, Bacaro’s chef and owner, Thad Morrow, offers a student prix fixe menu that includes a three-course meal and wine pairings for $25. (Arrive early. The offer ends at 7 p.m. every night.)

The first course is a shrimp bruschetta with limoncello (an Italian lemon liqueur), red chilies and mint. Served on top of an airy, toasted square of sourdough bread from Mirabelle in Urbana, this dish is a light start to the meal. The flavors of the limoncello and mint paired with the red chilies create a bright kind of spiciness that is heightened with a sip of the Bianco Salento white wine served with it.

For the second course, diners have a choice between two pasta dishes. The cavatappi (a corkscrew-shaped macaroni noodle) is served with pork Bolognese, a sauce made with a mixture of pork, bacon and beef, tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs. Though I am usually bored by red pasta sauces, I found myself repeatedly reaching across the table to pinch forkfuls from my companion’s bowl. The smoky, slightly sweet flavors of this dish pair nicely with the Salice Salentino red wine served with it.

Served in a chive butter sauce and dotted with a confetti of chopped chives, the lobster ravioli with sweet corn and basil is the lighter choice of the two pastas. However, in this case, “light” does not translate to “lack of flavor.” This dish is perfect for lovers of seafood or those not in the mood for the meaty flavors of the cavatappi.

Dessert is a seasonal, classy version of an ice cream sandwich. I have seen this dessert served two different ways, which leads me to believe that it changes — according to the whim of pastry chef Allyson West — slightly more often than Bacaro’s seasonally inspired menu. The first time, it was vanilla ice cream between two thin snickerdoodle cookies served with honeycrisp apples. The next time, the ice cream lay between two chunky chocolate chip cookies and was served with a red wine cherry sauce. Delicious every time and served with Moscato d’Asti, a sweet, sparkling dessert wine, this dessert is the perfect end to a chic yet low-key dinner at Bacaro.