At some point in the early aughts, my brother-in-law got turned on to this Bay Ridge red-sauce and pizza restaurant, and we liked it so much that we stopped visiting just about all the Italian-American places that were much closer to us. Back then, lines would form at Gino’s most nights, and, based on a recent visit, it’s just as popular today. “Coming here is like Groundhog Day for me, it’s always the same. We’ve celebrated birthdays here, anniversaries, weddings, it all blurs together,” she told me. She ordered some of her top picks for us, including thin slices of fried eggplant rolled around a creamy ricotta filling and doused with marinara, and big, breaded-and-fried butterflied shrimp Parmigiana, smothered in a comforter of melted mozzarella. (That might sound like they used a heavy hand with cheese…and they did, but it’s melted mozz, so I sure wasn’t complaining!) Another one of her favorites: a heaping bowl of rigatoni in a cream-tinged tomato sauce with prosciutto, peas, and mushrooms. It’s total comfort food.
