Everyone in my family loves the Italian American comfort of a good breaded cutlet. There’s simply great satisfaction in the hot crunch and delicate chew of one done fresh and right — a thin sheet of tender meat cloaked in a seasoned and greaseless crust, blushing with just a thin but deeply zingy red smear of bright marinara. At Cotoletta in Belmont Hills, the clubby BYOB  that replaced Mel’s last year with an entire menu dedicated to cutlet-craft (plus old-school anachronisms like the Milan salad), owner Beth Amadio has mastered the genre down to an egg wash flavored with secret spice.

A big 12-ounce veal chop  gets pounded thin and breaded crisp for a deluxe veal Parm upgrade. But for the indecisive who cannot really choose – chicken? veal? vegetarian? – the cutlet is a worthy adventure. Would it be too much, though? Two chicken cutlets wrapped around an eggplant cutlet oozing with melted provolone and two inner layers of sausage-stuffed long hot peppers sounds like just the kind of gimmicky contraption I’d normally resist.