Passable Pastas Dominate as Substance Loses Out to Style

The menu at La Jolla’s new Cafe Roma offers a short course in Italian phrases and eating habits, and offers such gems of information as the statement “cheese and seafood do not mix,” which is absolutely correct in Italian cooking.

What is incorrect in Italian terms is a menu that avoids seafood, which this one does con gusto . Fish may or may not be available as a daily special, but it appears nowhere on the standing menu. Except in the form of occasional specials, in fact, formal entrees of any sort are lacking on this list, which basically embroiders the no-frills pizza-or-pasta lineups offered by San Diego’s oldest Italian houses.

Proprietor Rosina Gangale first operated Leucadia’s ever-popular When in Rome after her brother, When in Rome founder Salvatore Gangale, moved to the Meridian tower in downtown San Diego to open the elegant Salvatore’s.

At Cafe Roma, Rosina Gangale perpetuates the When in Rome menu of pastas prepared more in the style currently in favor in Rome than in the tomato-drenched fashion traditional in the United States.

The menu persists, but the quality of cooking at the new place seems to have taken a back seat to the issue of ambiance. At its best, a selection of pastas sampled over the course of two visits provoked the comment “it’s OK” from those who ordered pasta; in the worst case, a serving of cannelloni, which the menu described as “crepes stuffed with veal and chicken,” seemed like nothing so much as a second-rate chicken enchilada given a vague Italian accent. The stuffing virtuously avoided the advertised veal in favor of large chunks of dried-out, stringy fowl, even though cannelloni filling must be finely minced to be acceptable.

Style has triumphed over substance here because Cafe Roma certainly seems on the cutting edge of trendiness. The downstairs bar seems a magnet for the younger set, while the upstairs dining room generally is filled with diners in casual finery. The management has assured that the staff will mirror the black-and-white decor by dressing it in black jeans and white T-shirts, which gives diners the impression that they are eating on a high school campus. A little formality would not hurt Cafe Roma.

The pastas lack personality, but the restaurant turns in a better performance with the pizzas, which it bakes to a nice crispness on the brick floor of an oak-fired oven. The pizza list starts with the traditional Margherita, supposedly named in the 1870s for the first queen of the newly unified Italy because it copied the colors of the kingdom’s flag with its red tomatoes, white mozzarella cheese and green basil leaves.

The list progresses appetizingly from that standard with versions that include tomatoes, onions and peppers; a four-cheese pizza made zesty with Gorgonzola and goat cheeses; a trendy number decorated with sun-dried tomatoes, onions and herbs, and a rather daring (for these parts) pie topped with eggplant, roasted peppers and feta cheese. The puttanesca pizza is a good choice for anyone who has a taste for something sharp, because it gives high flavor to the basic topping of cheese and tomato by adding marinated artichoke hearts, rich black olives and pucker-inducing capers.

Before it reaches the pastas, the menu offers a few surprises among first courses by listing an antipasto of marinated eggplant and meaty grilled peppers, and a selection of bruschetta , or slices of grilled bread finished in a variety of ways. The simplest is dressed only with olive oil and garlic, and is a little greasy; the bread topped with mozzarella, tomatoes and capers echoes the puttanesca pizza but has the advantage of serving just one person. The best style adds bitter, pungent, delicious arugula, the happiest of salad greens, to the mozzarella base. Other first courses include a respectable house salad, a passable Caesar salad and a rather nice pasta e fagiole , or bean, vegetable and pasta soup.

The pastas are sophisticated in their selection, if not always in the way the kitchen presents them. The list begins with tris della casa , a sampler plate that includes three offerings and varies from day to day; it recently included good fusilli alla vodka (corkscrew-shaped pasta with vodka, tomato, cream and a little hot pepper), lackluster lasagna and a rigatoni alla matriciana that had no more bite than a toothless poodle. The kitchen did add plenty of crushed red pepper to the penne all’arrabiata , but the sauce otherwise seemed composed of dribs and drabs of tomato and seasonings with no definite end in mind. Unsampled choices include the creamy rosetta , or noodles tossed with prosciutto, white sauce and Fontina cheese, and the ravioli in cream sauce flavored with sage.

The kitchen makes limited use of its grill, but did offer grilled lamb chops as the sole special one evening. These, like the pastas, were acceptable, but nothing more--a sprinkling of rosemary and perhaps a hint of crushed garlic would have made quite a difference because the meat itself was tender and well-cooked.

At the end of the meal, the server proffers a tray of pastries from a baker that supplies many La Jolla restaurants, and, although they are good, none are out of the ordinary. Cannoli made on the premises apparently appear from time to time, but were not available on either visit. What does end the meal on a reliably satisfactory note is a cup of the house cappuccino, which, unlike some things at Cafe Roma, is as fully flavored as can be.

CAFE ROMA

Corner of Girard and Pearl, La Jolla

454-4495

Dinner served nightly.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $25 to $50.