I hadn’t set foot inside 2411 S. Shepherd since it was Crostini. I never visited Café Zol, which inhabited the space most recently.

So I was delighted to see the old mahogany bar from the Shamrock Hotel still gracing the wall by the front door. And even more surprised that I fell in love with the understated, calming décor, the Sinatra crooning on the sound system, the little patio and, yes, the food.

Sabetta Café and Wine Bar is the love child of owner and chef Riccardo Palazzo-Giorgio and his wife Donna. And it’s a tribute to the Italian women in Palazzo-Giorgio’s life.

Sabetta is the Italian nickname for Elizabeth, the name of his grandmother, mother and daughter. And all of the recipes on the menu come from his grandmother and mother.

“My family is my inspiration,” Palazzo-Giorgio, formerly head chef of Simposio Ristorante and a first-generation Italian-America, says. “Hostess cupcakes in lunch boxes were popular when I was growing up, but I always had homemade desserts, my mother baked every single day.”

She also cooked, cleaned and sewed all the clothes. “Little suits with overcoats and matching hats,” he laughs. “We looked like little businessmen going to school.”

But while Palazzo-Giorgio traded in his little suits for a chef’s white coat, he kept his mother Elizabetta Palazzo’s love of Italian food.

The food performs

Just like a good Italian opera, the menu at Sabetta is divided into three acts: Antipasti, primi and secondi. (And desserts, but you know how I feel about those: Not a sweet eater, not a baker.)

Oh, but the rest is all good and exactly to my liking: Small plates for small prices and plenty of good Italian wine by the glass.

Meals begin with a complimentary crostini topped with roasted eggplant and pine nuts. Free food is always good, but this is really good, crunchy, succulent and with just a hint of heat. It foretold the tastes of things to come.

One of my favorite dishes was the antipasti roasted veal loin (at $9) and I could have stopped there. The paper-thin slices of delicate veal — topped with chilled tuna paste, capers and lemon emulsion — were tangy and filling, a perfect spring dish with a chilled glass of Zardetto proseco.

But there was more to come.

The potato gnocchi were light, cheesy little pillows of goodness swimming in Gorgonzola dolce and cream. And the Orecchiette of broccoli rabe, toasted garlic and house made sausage (just $12 and a meal unto itself) was wonderful. I’m not usually a sausage and pasta person, but damn.

“We get fresh pork butts, bone-in, that we grind daily,” chef Palazzo-Giorgio says. “I blend it with pepperoncini and fennel. A nice piece of that on a crusty bread drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, that’s a meal!” I would have to agree.

But his favorite might be the braciole, thin pan-seared slices of beef with Pecorino Romano, fresh parsley, pine nuts, cerignolo olives and capers. “It’s something we ate at home growing up a lot,” he says. “And this is my mother’s recipe.”

Sadly, his mother passed away in March, shortly before Sabetta Café and Wine Bar opened. But you can taste a mother’s love in everything on the menu here, not just the name.

And what about that daughter who also shares the nickname?

“She’s interested in fashion merchandising,” he says. “And my son Brandon, 24, is in high finance. He couldn’t cook to save his life. He eats here.”

And apparently he eats very well.

And, OK, I did sample the dessert. A panna cotta of lemon crème that was like eating a cloud of lemony cheesecake. Delicious, but not something I’m gonna put on my summer swimsuit diet regularly. Well, not that regularly, anyway.