New York Repays Its Debt to San Diego by Sending Italian Eatery

San Diego has exported a good deal of theater to New York, and the Big Apple recently, if belatedly, made a down payment on its cultural debt by remitting one of its better Italian restaurants.

Sante, which opened last month on La Jolla’s Herschel Avenue, is brought to you by the Buonsante brothers, Tony and Gaetano, two gentlemen from Bari, Italy, who for 10 years operated the celebrated La Feniche on Manhattan’s posh East Side. Tony runs the front of the house; Gaetano quietly and expertly practices his craft in the Sante kitchen.

Tony Buonsante said the brothers decided to escape from New York when their lease neared its expiration date.

Loved It, Then Left It

“Rent in New York is too much,” he said. “New York, you have to love it or leave it. I loved it for 30 years, and then I wanted to come to La Jolla.”

Several top executives in the Henley Group, including President Paul Montrone and Chairman Michael Dingman, are among Sante’s financial backers. Having enjoyed La Feniche during its heyday, they persuaded the Buonsantes to emigrate here and take over the cozy, relatively remote premises (the restaurant is a few blocks from busy Prospect Street) formerly occupied by that longtime relic of La Jolla “village” life, the Oak Tree.

The renovation seems virtually an unqualified success, although something needs to be done about the noise level in the main dining room. The leafy, secluded terrace is particularly pleasant at the moment, and the bar, the ceiling of which has been removed to reveal a cathedral roof, offers a few choice tables and a little intimacy on those nights when the pianist is off duty. When he’s at the keyboard, the bar makes an excellent spot for an after-dinner cappuccino or dessert.

Although almost every dish at Sante is familiar, the kitchen gives most a deluxe treatment, so that such commonplace dishes as veal parmigiana and liver with onions assume a novel and classy character. Even better, the restaurant actually serves genuine, imported scampi, the succulent shellfish from the Adriatic that are not shrimp, despite the erroneous teachings of dozens of San Diego eateries.

The less-flashy appetizers may be the most satisfying. The peppers with anchovies, for example, is a real classic, a selection of bell peppers roasted to a meaty, voluptuous texture, then garnished with anchovy filets and, for a salty, piquant accent, capers. Even if one isn’t nuts about anchovies, this makes a fine starter.

The same can be said for the bresaula , or air-dried beef (it is something of the bovine answer to the raw ham called prosciutto) shaved into the thinnest possible slices, arranged like leaves on a plate and drizzled with olive oil. This is almost an edible definition of an appetizer, since it is virtually weightless and not at all filling, yet it admirably awakens the appetite to the dishes that will follow.

Clams Clung to Their Shells

The list continues with vitello tonnato , or cold sliced veal dressed with tuna sauce; prosciutto and melon; a seafood salad; clams oreganata and the cheese and tomato dish called caprese . These last two were less than stellar, the clams well enough seasoned with oregano under their bread-crumb toppings, but also small clams that clung forcefully to their shells, while the caprese paired slices of fresh, creamy buffalo milk mozzarella cheese with crisp basil leaves and slices of hard, unripe tomato. When made with beautiful, sun-ripened tomatoes, caprese can be a superb dish, but lacking these, it should not be served. At $7 an order, one expects something better.

Buonsante said the kitchen sometimes offers such special pastas as pappardelle (broad egg noodles) with fennel or quail sauce. These indeed would be worth trying, although neither was available on any of several visits. The kitchen also offers risotto, the classic Italian rice stew, a piacere , or “according to pleasure,” and will whip up any variety requested in the course of half an hour. Consider this instead of pasta, especially the simple but lovely risotto alla Milanese that is perfumed and tinted with saffron. As with the pastas, the restaurant encourages diners to share risotto as a first course, rather than treat it as an entree.

The relatively brief pasta listing does offer some handsome choices, most notably the capelli d’angelo primavera (“angel’s hair springtime-style”). This dish of fine spaghetti tossed with mixed fresh vegetables is massacred by most restaurants, but Sante turned out a stunning version, the firm homemade pasta tossed with a creamy tomato sauce and then dressed with tender-crisp slivered carrots, forest mushrooms, peas, broccoli florets and slim French beans. For all its burden of sauce and vegetables, the pasta maintained a remarkable presence, its texture so definite that it explained the real meaning behind the Italian term “ al dente ,” or “to the tooth.”

The gnocchi con rugola e provolone, or potato dumplings draped with provolone cheese and garnished with a garlicky tomato sauce and shoots of crisp, bitter arugula, also made something dressy out of a commonplace dish. The contrast between bland dumplings and the fiercely bitter greens was refreshing and most unusual.

The preparation of the entrees, as is true of the best Italian cooking, is deceptively simple. Dishes are flavorful but not elaborate, and the handling is careful and thoughtful. Take, for example, the veal parmigiana, in which a large, tender chop (bone attached) was lightly pounded, dredged in crumbs, browned in butter and then put to rest under coverlets of tomato sauce and melted cheese. It was very simple, but very elegant also, and very satisfying.

Naturally Sweet Scampi

The genuine scampi, or meaty prawns somewhat reminiscent of lobster in their flavor, similarly received the simplest of treatments. Rolled in flour, crisped in butter and served in the lightest of butter sauces, they had a fine, melting texture and a naturally sweet flavor that excesses of garlic, as in San Diego’s ersatz “shrimp scampi,” would have debauched.

Plenty of garlic did enter the preparation of the gamberi marinara, or giant butterflied shrimp in a highly seasoned tomato sauce. Other seafood choices include sole meuniere, a seafood stew and squid in white wine sauce.

The standing menu offers calf’s liver Venetian-style (it is a great specialty of Venice), which is to say diced, sauteed with onions, and finished with a pungent splash of vinegar. This was excellent, but even better was a nightly special in which sliced liver was quickly seared, so that the center remained creamy. The kitchen finished this with fresh sage leaves and white wine, and the understated seasonings made it an unusually elegant dish.

Sante prepares many desserts, most quite rich and some, such as the tartufo (an ice cream, chocolate and candied-fruit concoction), quite irresistible. Among other notable choices are the rum cake and the torta di cioccolata , a chocolate cake that seems more like a firm, impossibly rich mousse.

SANTE

7811 Herschel Ave., La Jolla

454-1315

Lunch Tuesday through Friday, dinner Tuesday through Sunday. Closed Mondays.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a modest bottle of wine, tax and tip, $55 to $85.