Dining out: Sostanza

TOOELE — Fine dining in Tooele.

Did you chuckle when you read that?

Heck, I'm originally from Tooele myself, and while it has many, many good points, I must admit that an abundance of fabulous restaurants is not among them.

I've written before in this space about some of Tooele County's dining gems, like Grantsville's Casa del Rey and Rush Valley's Clover Creek General Store. But with the arrival of Sostanza on Tooele's old Main Street, the area has entered more rarefied air: There really is fine dining to be had here!

In fact, Sostanza's creativity, atmosphere and quality put it on a level with many of Salt Lake City's best.

Because I have a lot of family in Tooele, we had a biggish group of nine people for dinner at Sostanza on a recent weekend evening. Diners enter from the rear (that's where the parking is, plus a nice patio) into a long, narrow old store space that's cleverly broken up with a small lobby, a bar and the intimate but comfortable dining space.

The decor is unobtrusive, with lots of earth tones and dark wood and metal.

The menu is classic and elegant, with enough flair to let you know that somebody who knows what they're doing is in charge here.

We had so many appetizers that we were in danger of filling ourselves up before the entrees arrived. The calamari was lightly and crisply breaded and surprisingly tender, the deep-fried mozzarella a single decadent slab of oozy, panko-breaded deliciousness in a puddle of rich and tangy marinara.

But my favorites were even better. There was the divine little basket of "natural chips," warm and crisp-tender slices of potato and sweet potato with a wonderfully sharp Gorgonzola sauce and a teensy pitcher of vinegar.

And there was the excellent and thoughtfully conceived cheese platter, four diverse and challenging cheeses served with crackers and an assortment of thinly sliced apples, candied pecans and dried figs, apricots and cranberries.

The entrees were similarly excellent, from the thin fettuccine with sharp, light cream sauce and sliced chicken to the steak to the delectable and many-layered lasagna bolognese, with fresh, flat sheets of pasta keeping everything together.

The only missteps, and they were small, were the dryness of the buffalo flank steak special ordered by my cousin (buffalo, leaner than beef, is notoriously hard to keep juicy) and the odd, bland flavor of the chipotle potato gratin that came with several meals.