By David Tamarkin Photograph by Martha Williams

I started with breakfast. I ordered the eggs, billed “the world’s best.” They were overcooked. I tried the oatmeal. It was bland. I was discouraged, but dinner changed all that. Because as it turns out, Terragusto is a fabulous restaurant—just not in the morning.

Servers give a spiel that chef-owner Theo Gilbert encourages each diner to have an Italian-style four-course dinner: antipasti, pasta, a family-style entrée and dessert. But ordering the marinated vegetables with bufala mozzarella for the table is a more than adequate way to start. There are enough paper-thin slices of zucchini tossed with mint, crunchy garlic-marinated carrots, tart pickled mushrooms and excellent Italian mozzarella to go around. It’s a nice teaser for the excellence to come.

True to Gilbert’s obsession with local, organic ingredients, he uses DeKalb County polenta as a base for a kaleidoscope of textures and flavors: Bitter, crunchy rapini plays off soft, sweet caramelized onions. The ripiene, a filled pasta made in-house with organic flour (as every pasta here is), changes daily, and one night was stuffed with potato and Parmesan. It was as delicate, restrained and elegant as pasta can get. Free-range chicken was deliciously plump and juicy, with bits of crispy skin to peel off and eat like potato chips.

By this point in the meal most diners will be smitten enough that ordering one of the house-made crème brûlées would be a no-brainer. As tempting as that may be, order the outsourced carrot cake instead; the strawberry crème brûlée we tried was thin and watery. With dinner this delicious, it’d be a shame to leave with a bad taste in your mouth.

Terragusto 1851 W Addison St between Lincoln and Wolcott Aves (773-248-2777). El: Brown to Addison. Bus: 11, 50, 152. Open: Breakfast, lunch, dinner (Wed–Sun). Average main course: $16.