RESTAURANT REVIEW : 2 Bacis Aren’t Better Than 1

First there was Baci, a pretty little Italian place on Beverly, and now there’s a Baci on Pico too. They look much the same: pink and celadon color scheme, backlighted glass and brick bar, tasteful geometry in the ceiling moldings, wrought-iron garden furniture.

In fact, just about everything is the same, and if you know the old Baci, you pretty much know the new one, except maybe for the parking situation (in brief: It’s tough, use the valet service). The new Baci has the same menu, mostly a modern Italian selection with about twice as many pastas as meat dishes and about twice as many pizzas as pastas.

Why, though, am I blissful about Beverly but paranoid on Pico?

What’s to be paranoid about? After all, you’ve got to love a place that lists several burgers, even if they’re not major-league burgers--the one the menu calls the Classic is topped with onions, American cheese and . . . pancetta, that unsmoked Italian genus of bacon. (Another one, the Baci Burger, comes with a Gorgonzola dipping sauce on the side; it’s wild, a little like eating your burger and a salad with blue cheese dressing in the same bite.)

The reassuring burgers are there because Baci has never pretended to be wholly Italian. You also can find a quesadilla on the menu, and semi-American pork ribs--not actual barbecued ribs, but nicely grilled ones--with a totally non-sweet but actually quite traditional American sauce of vinegar, tomato sauce, cumin and hot pepper.

So why should I feel the new Baci is . . . not the same? Like the original, it serves outstanding fried mozzarella with Parmesan in the breading and a good marinara sauce. And it also serves seafood ravioli in a French-type curry cream sauce, which is probably the highlight of the menu.

True, true. But there’s something ominous about all these reassuring appearances. They’re like the surface normality of a city invaded by body snatchers from space.

Take the most expensive appetizer, shrimp Baci. The problem is not the shrimp, which are perfectly OK, if not quite abundant. It’s not the good, fresh tomato sauce flavored with cilantro, exotic though that may be in an Italian restaurant, and not even that the dish has a slovenly look. It’s that shrimp have no clear business being on the same dish with this sauce. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but there are tomato-cilantro sauces that make no sense with shrimp.

Or take the calamari appetizer. The thing that was so impressive about the calamari at the original Baci was how well-cooked they were, without a speck of grease. That can’t be said about these oily cephalopods, which are also pretty flavorless. There were four good eaters at my table, but only half these calamari got eaten.

You can tell me it’s the same dish, the same recipe and everything, but I know better. These are not the same calamari. Could they have been cooked by Pod People who are used to eating methane and graphite?

And what about this pizza? I associate the color of this crust with redwood bark (well, to be fair I’ve also seen it on some takeout pizzas). Pasta can get overdone too. It certainly was in my rigatoni borghese (nice idea for a sauce, though: tomato, cream, spinach and nutmeg). The calzone with four cheeses is certainly tasty, but I’m darned if I can taste more than one cheese, Gorgonzola; or maybe one-and-a-half, because there’s probably some Parmesan in it. And the “warm chicken salad” is a pretty lukewarm idea. What is this dressing, vinaigrette with protein concentrate or what?

Desserts are a different matter. True, among the French-type fruit tarts I’ve had one that seemed suspiciously like a space alien’s best guess as to what a tart should be: a tough, dry pie shell filled with some soft custard topped with slices of not-quite-ripe cantaloupe.

But the rest are quite good, things like a rich and sloppy tirami su and a decent coconut-flavored cheesecake. And the tarte tatin is the second-best I’ve had in L.A., with perfectly cooked apples, pudding-soft and caramel-brown.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is a genuine Baci where the kitchen has somehow not pulled itself together. The place gets crowded, so a lot of people must like it.

If they are actual people, that is. Forgive my paranoia.

Recommended dishes: fried mozzarella, $4.95; Baci burger, $7.95; spareribs, $8.75; seafood ravioli, $9.50; tarte tatin, $3.

Baci, 9233 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 205-8705. Open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday, for dinner daily from 5:30. Beer and wine. Valet parking. American Express, Carte Blanche, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $29 to $46.