"It just doesn't seem fair that Southport has been able to keep this restaurant a secret," lamented Elizabeth Hilts in her glowing review of Paci, located in the town's train station. Beardies first noticed the restaurant in 1997, when it won our Outstanding Restaurant Design award for its spare minimalist interior. But calling it "a little Italian restaurant in a train station is a little like calling the Library of Congress a reading room," Patricia Brooks wrote in The New York Times. This month, chef/owner Robert Patchen will prove that Paci's pleasures more than keep pace with its vaunted surroundings.

That Patchen should be at the Beard House at all represents an unusual mid-life career change. Until a few years ago, he was a man with an auto body shop and a yen for cooking. Over the years, that balance shifted, and eventually he opened a catering business, then worked the line at Pasta Nostra in South Norwalk. With the help of wife, Donna, he finally opened his own place.

Patchen first learned about food at his grandparents' Italian restaurant. "What they taught me was that the simplest way is the best." It's a lesson he learned well. The menu at Paci is small and changes often. "It's a rare restaurant where almost everything can be recommended enthusiastically," Brooks wrote in her review. "The trick-not as easy as it sounds-was that everything tasted freshly made and was relatively simple." Zagat called Paci "an Italian gem," and Martha Stewart named it among her favorite restaurants in Connecticut.

Given the many terrific things on record about Paci, we wonder how the place has remained relatively obscure. After this lunch, the secret will be out.