RESTAURANT REVIEW : Dining at Fresco--and Savoring a Pleasant Experience

During almost every meal I’ve had at Fresco in Glendale, I’ve been hit with an unusual sense of well-being. It’s hard to say how or exactly when it happens, but the pleasure seems to be cumulative. There are so many small courtesies from the staff, so many nice touches and surprising flavors on the plates that after a while one can’t help but feel pampered, safe and downright happy.

In an era where restaurant design is now a major preoccupation among the trendy, and otherwise intelligent people speculate that restaurant designers may replace chefs as food industry superstars, this relatively new (it’s a year and a half old) Italian restaurant will win no awards. Fresco inhabits the space of an old restaurant, Mauro’s, on South Brand Boulevard, and the part of the building facing the parking lot is still just a big room full of stacked chairs. The dining room has aspects of a Mediterranean courtyard, only it’s entirely indoors under a skylight framed in fake ivy, and the stucco walls look as if they’ve been textured with cottage cheese applied by palette knife. But the linens are layered and crisp, and a pretty, healthy African violet blooms on each table.

Most recently, I visit Fresco with my friend, Amy. We’re greeted, given a choice of table; our drink orders are taken and filled. Hot, delicious, small discs of crusty fresh bread arrive and the maitre d’ asks if we’d like to see a menu, or if we’d prefer to wait a bit and enjoy our drinks. This, I believe, is a quiet, discreet invitation disguised as inquiry. Clearly, the staff can get us in and out as quickly as we need to be; however, we are welcome--even encouraged--to sit back, relax and dine languorously. The pressure is off.

On this weeknight at least, the table is ours as long as we’d like it. We shift down into a low-and-lingering gear. We might as well be on holiday in southern Europe. We take our time looking at the menu and order appetizers before deciding on dinner.

Fresco serves rather more complex and ambitious Italian cuisine than is found in most of the Valley’s other Italian kitchens. I have an especially hard time passing up certain dishes I’ve particularly liked before, namely the corn crepe stuffed with duck . . . the goat cheese rolled in thin slices of marinated eggplant with roasted sweet peppers . . . the succulent veal chop . . . the excellent creamy, chewy lamb risotto.

Tonight we order heavily from the list of specials, starting with cool, marinated tuna draped over a lightly dressed green salad surrounded by oysters on the half shell. Amy does not eat oysters. She says they remind her of eyeballs . . . “But what do they taste like?” she wants to know.

“Right now,” I say, “if I were to judge where I was by the taste in my mouth, I’d say I was swimming in a cold, blue ocean.”

Our warm appetizer, an artichoke spaghettini , which the kitchen graciously divided for us, is dressed with good olive oil, diced fresh tomatoes and sweet, ultra-fresh shrimp. The pasta itself is made with artichokes, and the faint, elusive, almost sweet artichoke nuttiness haunts each bite. We eat every trace.

Between courses, our drinks are replenished. We sit back and look over our fellow diners, an eclectic mix: grown children with their parents; fashionable young couples dating and double-dating; women like us, good friends living it up; and a noticeable number of older men with markedly younger women. The light is rosy. At various table sides, waiters scoop soup from terra-cotta bowls and debone whole fish. Our cutlery is reset, water glasses refilled. The moment it occurs to me that I’m ready for dinner, our entrees arrive.

Amy says, “Isn’t it funny how, just when you want something, it materializes?”

At times, Fresco’s service does seem uncanny, especially to those of us who have gone long stretches without such skilled, professional attention.

Amy tastes her salmon in champagne sauce. “They don’t mess around here, do they?” she exclaims, and spears a bite for me. Salmon doesn’t come any fresher or juicier, and the sauce is light and luscious with a good zing from the champagne.

I have the night’s special: two baby quail that have been deboned, draped with prosciutto, stuffed with some kind of heavenly garlicky substance, braised in cognac and served on creamy, soft polenta. It’s full of flavor. Even the accompanying roasted potatoes and sauteed beans are terrific. We eat slowly, talk a lot.

By the time we get around to cafe au lait, we’ve been eating for hours, but we’re in no way weary. Good food fuels good conversation and vice versa. By now, Amy and I are well sunk into reminiscences; we’ve known each other for more than 20 years, but it’s rare we find the time to relax and excavate old memories.

Desserts are rich: We really like a white meringue with strawberries that’s decorated with rolled wafers so that it resembles a calliope , but the ricotta cheesecake topped with chocolate, while decent, is not great and I wish we’d just gone ahead and had the tirami su , which I’ve had before and know to be dreamy. But really, we’re fine. In fact, we’re laughing nonstop about Mr. Hoyt, our crazed and tormented 12th-grade English teacher.

The next day in my kitchen, I unpack my to-go carton and try to figure out what made those quail taste so good. I can’t put a fork tine on any one thing, it’s too elusive, like trying to pinpoint why meal after meal at Fresco is such a pleasure.

Recommended dishes: Corn crepe stuffed with duck, $9; insalata tricolore, $7; risotto with lamb, $15; salmon in champagne sauce, $19; daily specials, price varies.

Fresco, 511 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale. (818) 247-5541. Open for lunch Monday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dinner Monday through Thursday 5:30 to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Reservations are necessary. Full bar. Valet parking ($1.50).