When asked to recap his family’s history in Contra Costa County, Melo’s patriarch, Gaetano Piccolo, pauses and offers a short exhalation: “Where do we start?”

Where indeed? After emigrating with family from Italy to California, Gaetano and his brother Carmelo opened Napoli Pizzeria in Vallejo in 1956. In 1971, the brothers launched a similar New York–style pizza and salad concept, Melo’s (short for Carmelo) on Contra Costa Boulevard in Pleasant Hill, with Gaetano adding pasta, sandwiches, and entrées to the menu when he took over solo operation 10 years later. As his kids joined the family business in recent years, the Melo’s Pizza and Pasta flag has expanded to Brentwood, Livermore, Danville, and now Walnut Creek.

Opened in September, Melo’s Italian Table represents something of a bookend for Gaetano, who has always been interested in having a restaurant in the city’s downtown but never found the right opportunity. The location on Locust Street that previously housed Lark Creek and Bierhaus is a “dream spot,” says Gaetano. “We expanded in this big wide circle, and Walnut Creek kind of closes that circle for me.”

The Walnut Creek location also offered an opportunity for the family to modernize Melo’s brand and menu. The long interior is light and colorful with an open kitchen, small bar with cocktails, and a bank of windows overlooking a generous patio. The sprawling menu, meanwhile, consists of southern Italian–centered favorites from other Melo’s locations, along with a host of contemporary dining touches that include shared plates, more salads, Detroit-style square pizzas, and regional Italian entrées.

Big menus can be tricky, but head chef and culinary director Jean Paul Piccolo (Gaetano’s son) pulls it off deftly, executing classics with a surprisingly light touch while pulling a few tricks out of his chef’s hat along the way. The shared plates section is packed with crowd-pleasers. The meatballs, swimming in tomato sauce and spiked with parmesan and a scoop of velvety fresh ricotta, are a sure hit—although they could have used a tad more spice (despite being served with a whole Calabrian chili pepper). The toasty house-made focaccia, meanwhile, is crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside, and served with an outrageously flavorful herb butter. And the cauliflower is lightly fried to an ideal crunchiness and covered with an intriguing Sicilian-style agrodolce sweet-sour vinaigrette, chopped pistachios and herbs, sugary golden raisins, and briny capers.

I’m a sucker for a Caesar, and Melo’s is a cut above the norm: Cool, crisp cups of little gem are amply dressed and topped with toasted breadcrumbs and feathery shaved parm (no pre-shredded cheese here). I’m generally not a sucker for a chopped salad, though, which always seemed like a repurposed catchall for mediocre cold cuts and leftover produce. Melo’s version is an exception, as romaine lettuce with creamy Italian dressing is accented by a range of thoughtful ingredients: juicy-ripe cherry tomatoes, robust garbanzo beans, slightly bitter radicchio, sharp sliced red onion, tart pepperoncini, crisp shaved fennel, sweet raisins, and, best of all, chunks (not strips) of succulent smoked fennel salami.

The kitchen employs a light hand with its pastas, eschewing heavier sauces in favor of more restrained treatments that let the main ingredients shine. In the pescatora, plump prawns, bouncy rock shrimp, and ocean-fresh clams and mussels lend a clean seafood boost to the brothy sauce at the base of a generous nest of linguine. Parsley, chives, and garlic enhance the sweet, subtle marsala cream sauce that drapes the porcini mushroom ravioli. If anything, I found myself occasionally reaching for the salt shaker (mercifully provided at the table without having to ask), but I enjoyed both and appreciated the healthier approach.

It’s an approach that reflects a modern dining sensibility—but also one that’s embedded in the family’s culinary DNA. Gaetano was born in and informed by the Calabrian region of southern Italy, and Jean Paul returned to the old country to attend cooking school.

“It’s still a family Italian restaurant,” explains Gaetano, “but our roots are immigrant Italian American, so we try to stay true to those authentic Italian traditions as well. We want to use the best, healthiest ingredients.”

That concept extends to the drinks. The family consulted with a mixologist to create a smart, breezy cocktail list heavy on fresh fruit juices and Italian liqueurs—we enjoyed the Amalfi Breeze and Palermo Sour, both light, citrusy, and balanced. The new menu also amplifies Melo’s pizza offerings, adding Detroit-style square pies to its signature lineup of New York–style red and white rounds. Sporting a tall, spongy focaccia-style base, the vodka square balances sweet red sauce with pickled cherry peppers, spicy salami, and smoked mozzarella. But the star is the caramelized cheese crust, the trendy style’s calling card, which offers an addictively cheesy, crunchy layer of flavor around the perimeter. Probably my favorite dish was an old-school Italian classic: the penne bistecca. While generously served with a side of pomodoro pasta, the star of this entrée is the thinly sliced, tender, marbled rib eye bursting with flavor—courtesy of a topping of chopped garlic, oregano, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.

Does Melo’s have the same flash as some of downtown Walnut Creek’s increasingly urbane dining options? No, but that’s not the point: It offers good food at good value with an easy atmosphere.

“I think we’re a little unique in this neighborhood,” says Gaetano. “We’ve always prided ourselves on being a notch above in the Italian food sector—but at reasonable prices. … You can bring the family, relax, be comfortable, and not spend a fortune.”

And judging by the brisk business in Melo’s opening months, it’s a formula that seems to be working—and has been for Gaetano and his family for more than five decades. meloswc.com.