RESTAURANT REVIEW : The Timing Is Right for Il Tiramisu’s Lively Pizzas, Pastas

There is something perfectly straightforward and happy in the small, bright storefront restaurant Il Tiramisu--it definitely feels like someone’s dream that’s paying off.

The Sherman Oaks eatery has posters of pizza and Michelangelos, shelves of Italian foodstuffs and peach linen topped with glass. The service is prompt, cheerful and very unobtrusive.

Il Tiramisu is a great place to go when you don’t want to be distracted by fancy food, fancy prices or a waiter’s personality, when you just need to be taken care of.

The restaurant has a small, hard-working army tossing, stirring, grilling and garnishing in the kitchen so that the food comes out perfectly timed.

We love the wedges of warm, rosemary-scented pizza bread and the lusty, garlicky roasted peppers. A Caesar salad seems a bit dull, but a squeeze of lemon brings it to life.

The kitchen’s choices are consistently admirable, especially in light of the reasonable prices. The fresh mozzarella is soft and very fresh; the mussels on the seafood antipasto are the delicate black-shelled variety; the house olive oil is tasty, and the warm, fresh tomatoes and basil in the cappellini alla checca evoke hot summer gardening days.

Portions are generous. A bowlful of tortelloni, with a white wine cream sauce and big pink prawns, is filling and hearty. I take half of mine home and am delighted to find it in the refrigerator the next day. A cheesy spinach and ricotta calzone spiked with nutmeg and steaming hot can easily feed two.

In comparison with appetizers, pastas, salads and pizzas, Il Tiramisu’s main courses are less lively.

A coil of smoked sausage sits on an austere little square of grilled polenta next to a mound of mushrooms. It’s a dry meal, very autumnal in appearance and flavor--not bad, but not particularly heartening. A fat wedge of grilled halibut, served with a big portion of ratatouille-like caponata , pleases a diet-conscious friend.

The coffee’s good, but some of the desserts are on the odd side. I’ve never had a cake quite like the white chocolate cake. It’s a very heavy and dense yellow cake--if you dropped a book on it, you couldn’t dent it--but it’s oddly compelling. The casalinga , a filled spongecake liberally laced with Marsala wine, however, is a hit. “You could get drunk on it,” my friend Mary Beth happily declares.

As for the tirami su . . . in a brief review that hangs framed on the wall, a reviewer remarks that the namesake dessert “needs some work.” I ask our waiter, a young, affable, bleached-blond fellow, if this work has taken place.

“Naw,” he says. “That reviewer’s not from Italy; she doesn’t appreciate how authentic our version is. Most restaurants use ricotta cheese in their recipes; we use marscapone , an Italian cream cheese, the way you’re supposed to. Really, believe me, it’s great.”

Well, this reviewer isn’t from Italy either, but she has eaten a wide range of tirami sus and this particular version is right about mid-range--neither the best nor the worst. Small quibbles aside, however, Il Tiramisu, the ristorantino, should look forward to becoming a small neighborhood legend.

Il Tiramisu, 13705 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 986-2640. Open for lunch Monday to Friday noon to 2:30 p.m.; dinner seven nights 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. No alcohol. Cash only. Recommended dishes: Pepperoni arrostiti, $4.25; Caesar salad, $3.25; cappellini checca, $4.95; tortelloni with shrimp, $7.95; calzone, $7.95; casalinga, $2.50.