There are several kinds of dining experiences to be had at the flashy Nico Kitchen + Bar, tucked into the eastern end of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in downtown Newark. You might choose an evening when there’s a performance next door and the place is humming with fans who can pass directly into the theater at showtime. Or you might opt for a quieter night, when the enormous main dining room feels as cavernous and calm as a cathedral. In that case a better choice might be one of the handsome brown banquettes in the bar area, which can be bustling at happy hour but intimate a bit later on. Or maybe lunch, when there are “lots of suits” from the nearby office buildings and government offices, as Nico’s guiding force, Ryan DePersio, put it in a telephone interview after several recent visits.

Mr. DePersio, who grew up in an Italian-American family in Nutley, has drawn a zealous following with his brand of sturdy, unfussy Italian cooking at Fascino in Montclair, which he and his family opened in 2003, and Bar Cara in nearby Bloomfield, which followed seven years later. He’s performing on a far grander stage at Nico, which opened a year and a half ago. The restaurant is operated by Culinaire, a Dallas-based company that specializes in restaurants in cultural centers. Mr. DePersio, 35, is the consulting chef (he named the place after his 7-year-old son, Nicholas); the chef de cuisine, Adam Rose, formerly at Bin 14 in Hoboken, is at the stove on a regular basis.