Back in the beginning of 2015, we made a visit to Mezza Luna in Smyrna with our friends Claudia and Randy. We had a great time and really enjoyed our meal at the “hole in the wall” next to a liquor store. Since then, Mezza Luna has opened up a second location, just two miles from Date Night Headquarters in East Cobb. It’s Claudia’s birthday, so let’s invite our pals on a double date to see what’s cooking at the sequel.

The bad news is that Mezza Luna replaces Hoof and Ale, one of our favorite “beer and a burger” joints near us. Hoof and Ale was an East Cobb secret, but apparently it was too much of a secret and they closed after three years. We will miss them. Gone is the “blackboard of beer”, replaced by more sedate decor.

We are greeted with a delicious basket of bread.

You could almost skip the appetizers and munch on the bread. It’s that good. We do forgo the apps because we have had some snacks earlier in the evening, which means we get right down to dinner, after a bottle of wine is ordered.

What’s a better accompaniment to an Italian dinner than a bottle of Chianti Classico? Yes, even we can give up our beer for a glass of good wine.

There are four of us tonight, but each couple orders the same thing, meaning we only have two entrees to show you. If this dish is on the menu in an Italian restaurant, I will probably order it (and looking back on our original visit to Mezza Luna, apparently I chose it there as well):

Fettuccine pescatore has all of the food groups. Fresh pasta, clams, mussels, calamari and shrimp are covered in a red tomato sauce. It’s served steaming hot. How do they get the noodles to keep the heat? Anyway, the two of us who order this are very happy campers.

Our other dish draws raves as well.

Linguini and clams is Eve’s go-to Italian treat. It’s pretty similar to my dish, but she does not get as much of a variety of seafood. This is another excellent plate of food.

We are all pretty full, but since it’s Claudia’s birthday, we must celebrate with dessert.

The limoncello cake is light, fluffy, lemony and complimentary for the birthday girl. The cannoli are tasty too.

This is the kind of dessert that makes you want to lick the plate. Not wanting to embarrass our dinner companions, we scrape most of the chocolate off of the plate with a fork.

The Bottom Line on Mezza Luna 2: We miss our Hoof and Ale, but Mezza Luna is an excellent replacement. This may be another of East Cobb’s best-kept secrets. There is no mention of a second location on the Mezza Luna website, and we had to put the location onto Zomato, so we are probably the first review to post here. Hey, owners Tony and Luigi, wazzup with that? With food this good, we have a feeling that word of mouth will spread the news about Mezza Luna, but remember that you heard it here first.