IT’S SIMPLY, TASTEFULLY, TRULY ITALIAN

Celestino Ristorante, 236 S. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills , (213) 859-8601. Open for lunch Monday-Friday, for dinner Monday-Saturday. All major credit cards. Valet parking. Beer and

When my friends Chicco and Elena first walked into my house, I was making pasta. They watched incredulously as I rolled out the dough and cut it into ribbons. They shrugged their shoulders and said in unison: “You make your own pasta? Are you crazy? Nobody in Italy makes pasta; everybody buys it at the store.”

“Nobody in Italy . . .” was a litany I was to hear over and over for the two years that they shared my house. Especially when walking into Italian restaurants; according to them, nobody in Italy would have recognized what we were eating as Italian food. “Too much sauce,” Chicco would complain, searching for a few strands of naked spaghetti beneath a pool of red. “Too much garlic,” Elena would sniff with the Northerners’ contempt for the South. And they were both baffled by the sheer pretentiousness of the places in which we ate. “Nobody in Italy,” they said, “dresses up to eat pasta.”

They come back to visit now and then, and over the years they have become happier with the Italian food in America. The last time they were here, Cucina had just opened, and Chicco argued ferociously, in rapid Italian, with the waiter over what to eat. That pleased him. When the pasta came, he looked down at it, took a tentative taste and said, “This tastes like what we eat at home.” Then he looked around at the room and added: “But nobody in Italy would put it in a place that looks like this. And it is so loud!”

I wish Chicco were here to see the restaurant Cucina’s former chef has just opened. Celestino Drago is still making food that tastes like what they eat in Italy--but this time he is doing it in an atmosphere that would make Chicco comfortable. Like those restaurants you pass on every street in Italy, the ones in which Italians sit arguing the day away, the room wears a matter-of-fact air. It is bright and airy and pleasant, but it does not look like some decorator has come and fussed over it. It is comfortable and uncluttered and modern and--most important to any real Italian--it is an easy place in which to talk.

The food is easygoing too. It tastes good, but it does not demand a lot of attention. There are no strange combinations, no feats of daring. This is not a restaurant that requires that you sit and discuss the food. It is simply a restaurant that leaves you eager to come back.

There are no surprises among the antipasti, but there are some delights. The warm seafood salad is as good as you’ll get anywhere--a generous heap of scallops, mussels and shrimp, all tenderly cooked, in a light and pungent dressing of olive oil and lemon. There are usually a few other salads (the insalata mista is lovely and delicious) and generally a delightful carpaccio of veal topped with shreds of sun-dried tomatoes and pieces of Parmesan.

Soups are especially good here. One night, a zupetta di cozze-- mussels in a very light tomato broth--was so good that we used an entire basket of the good Il Fornaio bread to sop up the broth. Another night pasta e fagioli , topped with grated cheese, followed by a simple green salad and washed down with a glass of red wine made me entirely happy for an absurdly modest price (this very hearty bowl of soup was $4).

The pasta dishes would charm my friend Chicco. There is never too much sauce, and it is always al dente . Chef Drago was born in Sicily, but he moved to Tuscany when he was 13, and he borrows ideas from all over the country. From Tuscany come pappardelle-- wide, flat noodles, with a meaty, slightly gamy sauce made sometimes with lamb, sometimes with game. One day there was pasta alla sarda-- which I rather expected, given that Sardinia is an island, to be topped with fish. It turned out to be a robust sausage sauce atop interesting little nuggets of pasta. (I looked it up later, and it turns out that Sardinians have never been very taken with eating fish.) Fat tortellini were filled with squash, and the softness and sweetness of the vegetable against the slight resistence of the pasta was delightful, especially when punctuated by a lightly creamy sauce. One night, spinach fettuccine with a red pepper sauce made a sort of Christmas combo, and there is often black linguine, very black, very tough, in a gentle creamy shrimp sauce.

When the restaurant first opened--in early December--the menu was written all in Italian. The waiters must have gotten tired of going over it, so now it is rather charmingly translated. Spaghetti al cartoccio , for example, is helpfully translated as pasta en papillote . Translated into reality, the pasta arrives in a huge aluminium pillow. Square, enormous and puffy, this silver cushion is opened at the table, and a huge cloud of steam comes floating out. Inside is pasta laden with tomato, mussels, squid and shrimp. It is a nice dish, but one of which Chicco would probably not approve. “All that drama!” I can hear him saying disparagingly.

Entrees are a bit less satisfying than the other courses. One night, everything was too salty and, on another, lamb chops were overcooked. But I’ve liked a simply done veal chop--a good piece of meat, beautifully cooked. A tiny whole roast chicken with roast potatoes and rosemary was also delightful, and fish has always been simply grilled and perfectly cooked. Vegetables tend to be cooked a bit too much for my taste, but Chicco, I’m sure, would not agree. “Americans think everything should crunch,” I’ve heard him say.

He would certainly approve of both the wine list and the service. The former has been lovingly assembled; the choices are interesting and fairly priced. Among the Chardonnays is the quite splendid ’83 Chateau Bouchaine, and among the reds you’ll find an unusual wine called Griffi from Tuscany, made of 25% cabernet grapes and 75% sangiovese. It goes perfectly with this food. And it is typical of the service that one day at lunch, when I ordered a glass of Chardonnay, the waiter brought me a glass of Soave instead. “I’ll take it back if you want,” he said, “but this is lighter for lunch time. It won’t make you sleepy.”

I was totally charmed; nobody in America would say such a thing, but once, when I was eating with Chicco, he said just that.