Ellington

Description

If you've eaten at Belle Arti in Hot Springs, or remember when there was a Belle Arti in Little Rock, you'll likely recognize the menu at Vesuvio Bistro.
Chef Rosario Patti, who opened both restaurants, later selling the Hot Springs location to Penny and Joe Gargano, left Arkansas in the mid-'90s, opened a restaurant in New York near the World Trade Center and says he lost everything after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He moved to the opposite coast and opened a restaurant in Napa, Calif., which, of course, he named Belle Arti.
Now he's back in the Natural State and has opened an Italian restaurant in what used to be the lounge of the Best Western-Governors Inn on Merrill Drive in west Little Rock, which, to the best of our recollection, hasn't had a restaurant worth bragging about since it was the Lagniappe Inn.