I have no idea how large the kitchen at Rochester's newest upscale Italian restaurant might be, but the grill alone must be massive, the range must have 20 burners, and the ovens are probably large enough to double as hangars for small airplanes. There's no other way to explain the bus tire-sized 20 oz. rib-eye steaks, the plates groaning under the weight of double-thick pork chops, and the whole chickens that come out of Henry B's kitchen in a steady parade. The pasta, too, must be made on a bewilderingly large scale. Each plate is heaped with at least three, if not four, servings of tender, fresh-cut pasta, pillowy gnocchi, and fat, toothsome raviolis. This is about as close to a Roman orgy of food as most of us will ever get.

Henry B's is the newest entrant into Rochester's hotly contested Italian restaurant scene. It's also a transplant from its original location in Seneca Falls, where it has been building a very good reputation since 2001. Named in honor of owner Steven Turri's great-uncle Henry Bonafiglia, Henry B's is really two restaurants in one - the eponymous Italian steakhouse, and the more casual Sagamore Grille right next door to its big brother on the corner of Scio Street and East Avenue. Of the two, Henry B's is vastly superior and worth the visit.

At Henry B's everything is a bit larger than life. The dining room is vast and open with a very high ceiling and huge windows that open onto East Avenue, allowing you to enjoy the feeling of al fresco dining without the inconvenience of actually sitting outside. The portions are gigantic. Meant to be shared with your dining companions (and perhaps the people at the next table over as well), each of the appetizers, salads, and entrees, as your server will tell you, amply serves at least two diners and, in most cases, three. On each of my visits, I found that a single entrée and a single pasta was enough for a couple to share and have substantial leftovers to squabble over for lunch the next day.

The prices are equally substantial. Until you learn the trick of dividing the price of Henry B's menu items by two or three, things can seem quite pricey indeed: a fried calamari appetizer for $18, a perfectly adequate but not spectacular green salad with goat cheese, pine nuts, and kidney beans for $16, a plate of gnocchi with pesto for $20, etc. The bill can add up quickly, and you may need a glass of wine from Henry B's very nice and very reasonably priced wine list to help dull the sticker shock until dinner is served.

When the food arrives, you won't care about the prices anymore, but you will be wondering how you, your salad, and your appetizers will be able to share the same table. Then again, maybe you won't. Service at Henry B's is so nearly flawless that your server may anticipate your need for more space and, as ours did, slide an empty table over to accommodate the overflow of china and cutlery (even the steak knives are huge).

Once the shuffling of plates is complete, though, you are mostly in for a treat. Start with calamari fritti ($18), a heaping plate of tender squid rings dipped in a batter that clearly has a bit of cornmeal in it and then fried perfectly. The squid had no chewiness to it at all, the coating had a satisfying crunch, and the cornmeal added a welcome bit of texture and earthiness. Served with remoulade and a lemon herb dressing to dip in, four people could easily split this dish and you still might have leftovers. By comparison, the gamberoni spiedini ($16) seemed meager: two overcooked skewers of marinated grilled shrimp served with the same lemon dressing and a pleasantly spicy chili sauce. The shrimp were slightly tough, but the sauce more than made up what they lacked in flavor.

My first pork chop, however, wasn't at all tasty. I ordered the chops stuffed with pancetta, gorgonzola, and breadcrumbs ($30) medium rare. Two thick chops arrived, stacked one atop the other. The one on the bottom was cooked just right. It was juicy, tender, and flavorful, a good foil for the savory if slightly too bready stuffing and a perfect mop for the pool of fragrant demi-glace on which the meat was served. The top chop, on the other hand, was overcooked to the point of no return - dry as a bone. Happily, our unflappable server was on hand to fix the problem, and by the time we'd finished the first chop she was back with a replacement for the second, done up with more of that delicious demi-glace and presented just as nicely as the original entrée.

At Henry B's the pasta really shines. The ravioli con fungi ($22) were some of the best I've had, stuffed to near bursting with a mixture of portobello mushrooms, herbs, and ricotta and cooked until the pasta was just al dente. Sautéed with sage butter and shiitake mushrooms and finished with a generous shot of white truffle oil, the scent of the dish alone is enough to make your head spin. Four could easily share this dish, but two can (and did) make short work of it. The same could be said of the gnocchi in pesto ($20). The gnocchi at Henry B's are a thing apart, surprisingly light and fluffy yet solid enough to not be overwhelmed by the basil-cream sauce in which they were served.

The same cream sauce, topped with crumbled bacon this time, is used in the spaghetti carbonara next door at the Sagamore Grille. While this dish was not in any way carbonara (which is essentially bacon and eggs with cheese over pasta), it was a very tasty alfredo and a satisfying lunch. The Italian BLT on the other hand, was just bland and bready - good bacon lost in entirely too much roll with indifferent tomatoes. Lunch here was barely adequate, and the service was both inept and criminally slow given that not everyone could afford two hours for lunch on a Wednesday afternoon. The Grille is not without promise, but it has a long way to go to catch up with its big brother next door.

Henry B's/Sagamore Grille

140 East Ave, 730-8170

Daily 4:30-11 p.m. (Henry B's); Daily 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m. (Sagamore Grille)