RESTAURANTS / Max Jacobson : Flavors, Ambiance of Italy Served Up in a Gleaming White Dining Room

The province of Piedmont (Piemonte in Italian) is among the most alluring in Italy. Gastronomes grow sentimental at the mention of the region’s white truffles and sweet, sparkling wines. Sun worshipers from all over Europe frequent its chic beaches. Personally, I like the small towns. That is where one finds the best polenta --a baked, light-yellow cornmeal that Piemontese use to mop up rich meat juices at almost every meal.

At Caffe Piemonte, a new storefront restaurant in Orange, you can have your polenta and eat it too. Managing brothers Giovanni (maitre d’) and Luigi (chef) Ravetto hail from a small village just south of Turin, the provincial capital, and they have given the dish star billing on their menu.

The dining room is Italian modern: spotlessly clean with white tile walls, white tablecloths and a shiny gray tile floor. As soon as you come through the front door you hear Italian folk music being trumpeted over a loudspeaker.

If the music doesn’t grab you, the lighting will. This place is as bright as a Chinese dumpling house. It is possibly the whitest restaurant in Orange County.

Once your eyes adjust, start with the antipasto Piemontese, a large plate topped with garlicky grilled eggplant, a trio of roasted peppers, pickled baby onions, hand-sliced prosciutto and soppressata and a chunk of soft bufalo mozzarella cheese, all drizzled with good quality olive oil. It is the purity of its components that makes this dish so appealing. (The peppers, alone, are worth the price of the dish.)

And there are other things nearly as good. Ravetto’s beanless minestrone, for one, a harvest of celery, zucchini, tomato, carrot, chard and spinach in a huge white bowl topped with grated cheese. It may be the best minestrone I’ve eaten outside of Italy. In contrast, zuppa di pesce , fresh fish soup with swordfish, halibut, mussels and tiny shrimps, runs aground on an overzealous heap of red pepper flakes.

But it’s the polenta we’ve come for. Chef Ravetto has created two versions. The better of the two is the one he calls polenta Piemontese , baked with a sharp fontina cheese, cut into squares, and brought out bubbling in a buttery sauce. This polenta is soft and fragrant, not at all dry or mushy as it is time and again in California creations. Eaten with the nice house salad, it makes a pleasant little lunch. Polenta al salmone is another matter, fancied up with a salmon mousse and a basil sauce. The dish is so rich that no self-respecting Italian farmer would look at it twice.

Tasting that dish prompted me to ask the chef’s brother why the restaurant doesn’t serve polenta in traditional peasant fashion, as a side dish for meats and vegetables. “Americans,” he said tentatively, “aren’t familiar with peasant Italian cooking. Maybe they wouldn’t like it.” On the other hand, maybe we would.

Pastas are handmade daily by the chef and appear in the usual variety of shapes and colors. Ruotelle , little green wheels with six spokes to soak up sauce, are served in a light pesto with abundant basil, some garlic, and the barest touch of pine nut and Parmesan. Ziti con salsiccia , tube pasta with Italian sausage, has a delicate tomato sauce with the flavor of wild sage. Lasagne Asti is special because of a creamy white sauce and whole, fresh mushrooms. The penne putanesca , short tubes with tomato, black olives, capers, garlic and olive oil, is salty, hot, and sweet. I was less impressed by the cannelloni and tagliatelli verdi ai funghi (both highly touted by the waiters). The cannelloni were bland, except for aromatic spicing that gave them an inappropriately Middle Eastern character. The tagliatelli were just plain bland.

If you need a rest from the complex carbohydrates, there are plenty of grilled items and sauteed meats. Large veal chops rubbed with herbs and garlic and costata di manzo al timo , rib-eye steak with fresh thyme, were the best of those I tasted. Pass on the under-whelming platters of grilled halibut, salmon or swordfish.

The dessert list is small and handsome. If you are lucky, Ravetto will have his crostata di mele (homemade apple tart with almond crust) on hand. If you are not so lucky, you will get stuck with a tired tirami su that has been ruined by il frigo (as the waiter called the refrigerator). Oh well, you can always fall back on the semifreddo (vanilla ice cream in espresso coffee). And yes, the espresso is excellent.

Caffe Piemonte is moderately priced; prices are the same at lunch and dinner. Antipastos are $4.50 to $6.25. Soups are $3.75 to $7.75. Polenta dishes are $4.75 to $5.25. Pasta dishes are $4.75 to $10.95. Grilled items range from $8.50 to $16.50. The wine selection is exclusively Italian, with wines from $8.50.

CAFFE PIEMONTE

1835 E. Chapman Ave., Orange

(714) 532-3296

Open for lunch, Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; for dinner Tuesday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

No credit cards accepted