A great restaurant is like a great friend: enjoyable, reliable and nurturing. When a fun and hospitable restaurant bears the first name of a person, a visit to the establishment seems even more like dropping by the home of a friend.

That’s the case with Gabriel’s Northern Italian Restaurant, located south of Denver in Sedalia. On a recent unseasonably warm spring evening, my sweetheart put the top down on his convertible for the drive. Depending on traffic and where you live in the metropolitan area, the trip might take 45 minutes to an hour, but it’s a lovely drive, so just grab a good CD, and enjoy the journey as part of your experience.

Once you’re off the highway, you’ll wind through gorgeous countryside: fragrant pines and suburban palaces, Arabian horses, upscale golf clubs. This is Castle Pines, after all.

In sleepy Sedalia, you’ll find Gabriel’s in a charming old Victorian manor house. Outside are gardens, an expansive deck and a gazebo. Inside, the environment feels quaint, as a Victorian house should, but even if you’ve had your fill of wainscoting and floral wallpaper, know that executive chef Tony Sanabria’s food is nothing short of sophisticated.

Besides which, the nostalgia isn’t commercially contrived at Gabriel’s. The house, known as the Manhart Manor, was constructed in 1908 for the local mercantile’s owners and their 13 children.

Now the house and the restaurant housed within belong to Lynn and Matthew Bundy. On staff since the establishment opened in 1983, Bundy worked as manager and maitre d’hotel before he came to own the place. He notes that customers do come into Gabriel’s just for a fabulous meal on other than red-letter days. Yet, more often than not, a reservation at Gabriel’s means a festivity: a birthday or anniversary, an engagement, graduation, prom — you name it, if it calls for dressing up and dining out, it’s a good time to call Gabriel’s.

Once at your table, trying to decide on a cocktail or wine, order a bottle of San Pellegrino for an immersion in Italia. Your server will make a fuss over the bottle, swaddling the unfinished portion in a cloth napkin and keeping it on ice, giving it the royal treatment almost as if the carbonated water were as precious as a bottle of prosecco.

That’s Gabriel's. Everything and everybody seems to get the royal treatment, but there’s no bowing or scraping or annoying hovering at your table while you’re discreetly trying to twist up some linguini. The servers seem more like friends — probably even family for the regulars.

Prepare yourself for food both delicious and plentiful, the sort of meal you’ll want to save yourself for. What’s more, the meal doesn’t come with an astronomical price tag — particularly when considering that each entree comes with antipasti, zuppa, garlic bread and insalata that is anything but plain garden variety.
By way of wines, Gabriel’s offers an exhaustive selection with a variety of vinos available by the glass, the bottle, the half bottle and more. In the mood for red, we toasted our fond memories of Sonoma County with a Ravenswood Icon Syrah blend and then clinked goblets with a Chianti Classico, Rocca Delle Macie, in homage to our recent trip to Italy.

Dinner began in earnest with antipasti: a portion of delicately poached salmon in a savory red pepper cream sauce. Next came garlic bread — the buttery, toasted-to-perfection kind that makes you forsake anything you ever knew about Dr. Atkins and the low-carb diet. The soup of the evening — Italian vegetable — made us moan with pleasure. With diced vegetables still holding their shape and texture in a succulent broth, the soup was so tasty that the men at the table next to us asked for seconds. And were graciously obliged!

If you’re a salad person, you’ll take delight in noting that Gabriel’s does not serve a salad consisting of greens yanked directly from a plastic bag and splashed with bottled dressing. The evening’s insalata mixed tender baby field greens, candied walnuts, feta cheese and tart dried cranberries — all tossed in a snappy vinaigrette.

Gabriel’s entrees include several selections of beef, chicken, seafood, lamb and veal. There’s a lone duck dish, so tempting, and a vegetarian option. The menu offers mixed plates for the indecisive, and I count myself among them. Gabriel’s also offers petite portions of several entrees.

We tucked into our main dishes, two combo plates: lobster Gorgonzola and beef Marsala on one, and on the other, chicken saltimbocca and scampi. Having sampled it once, I might have a hard time veering from the lobster with the cream sauce and tender artichoke hearts paired with those dreamy medallions of tenderloin sauteed in wine and mushroom sauce — all served with silky garlic mashed potatoes and spears of roasted asparagus.

The scampi was scrumptious, too, with sizable, plump shrimp. The chicken, topped with prosciutto and melted mozzarella cheese, tasted like chicken — no small feat, given the flavorless flesh all too often passed off as barnyard birds.

By the time dessert rolled around, we had eaten one too many slices of that garlic bread. Though we had our eye on a lemon tart, we decided to share a torte tiramisu, presented to us with a flickering birthday candle. Told to make a wish, we did. I know you’re not supposed to tell, but by that point, my only wish was that we soon would return to Gabriel's.

We’re both sugar junkies. Though tiramisu doesn’t normally leave us swooning, this version did. Mmmm-mesmerizing with a rich and thick and creamy mascarpone filling, the ladyfingers contained just enough Kahlua so as not to be boggy. Gabriel’s version arrives elegantly flanked by fresh strawberries and served on a bed of creme anglaise.

Alas, we had no room for the specialty coffees, though they sounded enticing. After-dinner libations include Cognacs, ports and specialty aged liquors like the 100th-anniversary Grand Marnier.

At the end of the meal, one of our servers presented me with a lovely long-stemmed red rose and wished us a happy anniversary. We didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise. Anyhow, at Gabriel’s, even if you’re not celebrating a special occasion when you walked in, you’ll probably be celebrating one by the time you walk out.

Gabriels Restaurant In Sedalia
5450 Manhart
Sedalia, CO 80135
(303) 688-2323