Basilico
8 Sukhumvit Soi 33
Tel: 02 662 2323

This is a big restaurant with a large front area that is dominated by a pizza oven. This is a nice airy space but I prefer the back room which I find cooler as the air-con is not fighting with the oven.

Essentially this is a pizza pasta operation with a big range of those items. I noticed four calzone pizzas as well as 20 other options, and I suspect that you can chop and change as you desire. I headed for the other menu items and had cream of courgette soup with gorgonzola. This turned out to be a first class choice. A good smooth soup with more than a hint of the cheese in the final taste.
For mains I plumped on an item not really knowing what to expect and therefore it was a new dish to me. It was “taglaita di manzo ai porcini e tartufo” which was described as medium raw beef, with mushroom truffle sauce. It was not the most appetsing dish to look at, but it was cleverly presented surrounded by a big sellection of al dente vegetables. The beef itself was lightly cooked fillet that would probably been better without the heavy saucing. But hey that is what I had ordered. The sauce itself was a béchamel-based sauce with lots of flavour and plenty of the porcinni mushrooms.
I finished off with a slice of cheesecake. Basilico is like a few other Italian restaurants that seem to set their stall out as a pizza/pasta operation but are a great deal better than that. This is a pretty good Italian restaurant, and it is made better by having Sergio, an ever-present owner manager, who is clearly very hands on.

Update April 2008
Sadly, for Basilico, Sergio now has is own operation at Bacco.
But the restaurant is still very popular although Saturday and Sunday afternoon's are best avoided unless you like children.