Rumors had been buzzing for months that Carla Magziar was closing her C&C Pasta Co. The speculation became reality when Magziar sold her cult favorite to Chu Sun Hendricks in December. It was rechristened Buon Amici.

After a renovation in February, the restaurant reopened last month. The simple, streamlined room now has an air of Little Italy cheese — in the form of wainscoting, sponge-painted walls and faux-stone tiling — but the food (and charming veteran Swiss waiter Marc Andres, who stuck with the ship) should keep hand-wringing C&C patrons happy.

Chu says it was a stroke of luck that chef Alfredo Lee — formerly of Spada — filled in an application at the zero hour.

The name's Chinese but the background is Latin — Lee is the son of a half-Chinese, half-Mexican mother and an Italian father who soon parted ways. Raised in Mexico City by Mom, Lee went to live with dad in Tuscany as a teenager. He worked for Il Fornaio in Milan — a bakery-and-restaurant chain that spread to California, where he moved to work at Il Fornaio locations there.

Lee has put together a nice homey menu for a neighborhood joint like this. There isn't anything you haven't seen before in one permutation or another, but it's not red sauce and meatballs, either.

The kitchen sends out good composed salads — Gorgonzola and grilled pears are always nice with baby greens. (Although the pears are a little mushy — down the street at Town, they're almost like dried fruit, full of concentrated flavor.)

Spinach salad is made with organic leaves, liberally sprinkled with bits of applewood-smoked bacon, aged ricotta cheese, sauteed mushrooms and walnuts.

But here's a note to all Italian restaurants: Give up on Caprese salad, already. Hawai'i just doesn't have the tomatoes to make it worthwhile. Not even Hamakua tomatoes come close to the firm, faintly sweet-and-acid red orbs that grow in Italy. We're teased by the mozzarella and fresh basil, and then the watery tomato just ruins the flavor trifecta. And that's what Caprese salad is all about. Just stop.

Island-oriented blue crab cakes — mostly meat, with a thick, crisp breading — have a fruity topping of diced bell pepper, peach and mango.

Lee makes a mean carpaccio, the gossamer slices like breath strips of deep beef flavor. (Hope it's a special.)

From the grill are the classics — unadorned meat. Florentine steak arrives as a top-notch tender angus New York steak (the kitchen was out of the T-bone listed on the menu) that could have used a little more seasoning. Pork Milanaise is described as "thinly pounded" on the menu, but was thick on the plate — an imposing slab of breaded, baked meat.

Where Buon Amici shines is with its pastas — house-made and al dente. Extra-wide, silky pappardelle and sausage hunks in a tomato-cream sauce gorgeously flecked with caramelized onion and pancetta is a must-have on a chilly Kaimuki night. (Although on a second try, the sauce was practically just tomato and cream — what happened?)

Lee also puts creativity into his specials: Cherry-port sauce has just the right amount of sweet to match the gaminess of slices of lamb T-bone. Sauteed sea bass is topped with a tangle of rubber-band-thin fried onion for a beautiful textural mix, all atop layers of mashed potato and lightly sauteed baby spinach. Too bad the lamb and fish were both overcooked. The intention is good, but the kitchen has to get its act down.

And it is working out the kinks. Lee said no one knew how to use the pasta machine. He found it was clogged up. "I fixed the machine myself," says Lee, in his inimitable thick Italo-Mexican accent. Now too-thick cappellacci and tortei are as thin as they should be. "I finally got what I wanted."

With servings big and pasta prices starting at $16.95, it's hard to do the primo-secondo-contorni parade of dishes. If you like to go that route, on slow nights the kitchen may serve half-portions of pasta. It graciously did one night. It's worth asking.

Dolci include a classic tiramisu that's a textbook balance of all the requisite elements, and a good panna cotta — like milk Jell-O — that came overpowered by a pool of frozen blueberries.

The menu doesn't concentrate on any one region, and Lee says that's what he plans to do with specials, featuring dishes from, say, Sicily, Emilia-Romagna or Piedmont for a week.

The workings are all there to keep this a favorite neighborhood niche spot, but as the number of "althoughs" in this review indicates, the restaurant needs to work on consistency to be a real buon amico worth its price.

Reach Lesa Griffith at lgriffith@honoluluadvertiser.com.