A Review of La Zingara Ristorante, in Bethel Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times OLD WORLD La Zingara Ristorante resembles an Italian country house and uses ingredients from a farm nearby. LA ZINGARA RISTORANTE has anchored a prominent spot on P. T. Barnum Square in Bethel since 2002. One reason for its continuing success is that, unlike Bethel's native son Phineas Taylor Barnum, La Zingara knows how to put on a good show without relying on gimmicks like a "Feejee" mermaid or General Tom Thumb. Heading up the culinary troupe is the chef Thomas Giudice, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who trained in Italy. He is supported by a competent and often affable wait staff in a mocha-colored, two-story building that, with its window boxes of geraniums and vines, bears more than a passing resemblance to an Italian country house. The main dining room projects an air of rustic formality that stands in contrast to the newer, and far smaller, Ecco Rooftop Eatery upstairs, where paper menus are on clipboards, dish towels serve as napkins, and patrons eat at shabby-chic tables. The rooftop menu consists largely of salads, panini and ultrathin wood-fired pizzas. In both areas, the restaurant relies on fresh produce. La Zingara, which is Italian for Gypsy, cultivates part of a 126-acre farm, and it is hard to imagine kale being any fresher, or more tender, than the chopped morsels deployed in a savory salad with currants, sunflower seeds and grated Romano. The arugula, baby spinach, tomatoes, sweet corn, potatoes, scallions and herbs are also fresh from the farm. Occasionally, such greens outperformed other, more prominent, components of a dish. In calamari sautéed in a smoked tomato broth, an appetizer, the fire-smoked tomatoes, tinged with sweet garlic, wilted arugula and truffle oil, were far more delectable than the competently prepared, but unremarkable, squid. More often, the vegetables expanded a course without eclipsing the main attraction. Such was the case with the roasted corn, topped with Parmesan shavings, that served as a bed to an appetizer of grilled quail. The quail was dotted in a sweet-spicy mostarda di Cremona, the latter's candied bits of fruit, and its spicy undertones, perfectly complementing the slightly gamy, liverlike taste of the bird. As these flavors coalesced and flowed downward, they permeated the cheese-tinged corn kernels, further enhancing a winning combination. Grilled prawns, another starter, proved equally successful when teamed with a small salad of tomatoes, cucumber and crumbled feta. The roasted olives listed on the menu were omitted. In this case, the salad, spiked with fresh oregano and a splash of vinaigrette, served as a refreshing counterpoint to the saltiness of the succulent, slightly undercooked seafood. The only disappointment among the appetizers was a vegetarian piadina, which amounted to oily flatbread smothered by crude cuts of barely grilled portobello, eggplant, zucchini and squash. While much of La Zingara's cuisine draws inspiration from northern Italy, two pasta dishes from the south are sublime in their simplicity and balance. The Campenelle Spinaci e Funghi mixed fresh shiitake and cremini caps (not wild mushrooms, as promised by the menu), baby spinach and bits of onion, draped in a heavenly sauce of butter, heavy cream and Parmesan. Far lighter, but no less gratifying, was the Rigatoni alla Buttera: fresh-tasting marinara that was delicately applied - as if by paintbrush - to a platter of rigatoni, with crumbled sausage, green peas and a sprinkling of Parmesan. That delicious house marinara also accompanied a dryish stew of beans "all'uccelletto" that accompanied a surprisingly excellent veal T-bone entree. Good as the beans were, prepared, like the pasta, to an ideal al dente texture and blended with bits of celery and carrots, they were dwarfed by the veal chop, which rose an inch and a half off the plate. Crowning the tender meat were a generous pat of butter and minced black truffles. Another entree that surpassed expectations was the pan-roasted duck. Slices of breast were just the right shade of pink and were surrounded by a fruity, semisweet demi-glace. My one complaint: the wizened, nearly incinerated state of the squash, broccoli and carrots that arrived with this course. Also worthy of note is the roasted salmon entree, a slender, yet flaky and moist filet topped with chunks of fresh mango and served with a medley of red quinoa, grape tomatoes, peas and onion.