With the ubiquitous Italian restaurant practically on every corner, you'd think that Germany's star…read morecuisine would have to be a step above what you can find in America since they're so much closer to Italy! The reality of this is that most of these restaurants are lame stand-ins serving German-ized Italian fare which means my husband and I have been to our fare share of Italian restaurant flops in Hannover. Almost everything on the typical Italian menu around here comes "überbacken," which the Italians would probably translate into "melted cheese suicide." Exit the Italian wannabe stand-in, enter Fellini, a shrine to the famed director serving actual homemade pasta right in the Lister Meile in Hannover. It's a small space but brimming with hospitality and plates of honest good Italian food made with the attention to detail that the film director would have appreciated. The simple mixed salads that we ordered were already a preview of what was to come since they were basic lettuce, tomato, red onion and carrot arrangements, but nonetheless pleasingly arranged and plainly dressed with oil. They were super fresh and delicious. I didn't have to cut apart any iceberg lettuce 'icebergs' with a knife and fork to get it into my mouth. You could add your own salt, pepper and balsamic to taste with the extra condiments they brought to your table. The main dishes were earthy and satisfying. We had a few of the specials of the day including a steak dish with a coffee reduction sauce as well as the homemade salmon and spinach gnocchis in sage butter. The heady coffee reduction sauce and the gnocchi's unexpectedly heavenly texture with pieces of salmon and spinach incorporated into the dough itself had our taste buds asking for an encore but the portions were so generous we reluctantly had to decline dessert. At this point the curtains were already rolling down on this happy production but the smiling owner and head chef of the restaurant wouldn't let us leave without giving us a few hunks from a massive footstool-sized panettone they had gotten for the holidays. It was a Loison panettone and it was the freshest, moistest, most fragrant and absolutely the best panettone I have ever eaten in my life--a crowning finish to a stellar performance from an all star cast. I can't wait to go back to Fellini's to sample another act from this truly authentic culinary entertainer.