RESTAURANTS - Newest Entry in Newport Italian Food Sweepstakes Could Be the Best Yet

Anyone seeking a weather report on a new restaurant need ask only two questions: 1) Is it Italian? 2) Is it in Newport Beach? If the answer to both questions is yes, the forecast is hot.

Tuttomare, Sapori and Grappa are three of the hottest new restaurants to open in the Newport Beach area this year. Now comes a fourth, Bagatta, the best Italian restaurant to appear on the local horizon in quite a while.

It occupies the space that once housed Le Saint Tropez, a Newport Beach institution for more than 20 years. The room is warmer now, and certainly more gracious. The walls are sand-finished white, and a center dome has been added, which allows a radiant light to leak through. A working fireplace gives off a burnished glow, tables are arranged with a spacious civility, and chairs are elegant and plush. You simply won’t find a more relaxing place to dine in this area.

Chef and co-owner Andrea Rogantini did a brief stint at Tuttomare but got his heavyweight cooking experience at the highly acclaimed Gualtieri Marchesi in Milan and Mauro Vincenti’s Rex in Los Angeles.

Bagatta, named after Rogantini’s partner Tony Bagatta, is small. It’s the kind of restaurant where a chef can pay attention to details.

An excellent focaccia comes first, even before the menus arrive. The bread is soft and chewy with a golden brown top, burnished, like the wood in the fireplace. If the scents of garlic, olive oil and sweet, rising flour don’t stimulate your appetite, you probably had too much for lunch. Don’t eat the entire basket.

There’s the antipastos, for one thing. The best would have to be Norwegian salmon carpaccio. Perfect, wafer-thin slices of salmon marinated in a pale olive oil and fresh lemon are latticed with a moss-green pesto thick with pine nuts and dotted with whimsical clumps of salmon roe. It’s an overly precious version of carpaccio that works simply because it tastes so good.

Dry-cured bresaola (an edible tent obscuring a mound of radicchio and arugula) is moist with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tastes terrific.

There is a first-rate beef carpaccio as well, with a savory imported Parmesan topping and oddly crunchy marinated baby artichoke hearts as a centerpiece. Smoked mozzarella is wonderful too, subtle and yielding, with basil, oregano, tomato slices and a splotch of fresh oil. With starters like these, who needs pasta?

But then, Rogantini makes his own pastas (except the penne ), and he’s a master of texture. Standards include fettuccine al pesto , spaghettini with seafood, and the penne with basil and tomato sauce.

Pappardelle (the flat, broad noodle) comes in a super-intense porcini sauce and a mere sprinkling of Parmesan. I didn’t care for the fusilli , despite a remarkably toothsome bite to the noodle. The problem was the sauce--deep, red and full of salty, cracked Kalamata olives from Greece, as well as odd bits of aromatically spiced Luganega sausage from the south of Italy. This might sound strange, but it simply had too much flavor for my tastes.

Secondi piatti (meat and fish courses) show off Rogantini’s stratospheric training. A regal veal chop comes pan-crisped in a smooth demi-glace, and more of the richly flavored porcini . Roasted Muscovy duck breast gets the three-star French treatment, fanned out in slices with a delicate sauce of red pepper and green peppercorn. Pan-roasted beef tenderloin is terrific, in a simple reduction of shallots and Barbaresco, the rich Italian red wine.

I refused the waiter’s recommendation--sauteed free range rabbit--only because the image seemed so absurd. I’m glad I don’t have to catch them when it’s time for market.

In spite of all this bounty, things actually get better with dessert. Two of the desserts at Bagatta rival any I’ve had in an Orange County, and possibly beyond that.

Zucotto is a half-dome with a top layer of rum-soaked spongecake, successive layers of vanilla and chocolate custard, then a bombe -like filling of whipped cream, egg yolk and chopped-up confections like brandied cherry, crushed nut and shaved chocolate as the base. Homemade spumoni and mocha ice creams sit in a pool of creme Anglaise. The spumoni comes in a little scoop, with different flavors and textures playing off each other like a string quartet. The mocha comes in a little cylinder, creamy and intense with espresso grounds. It’s a remarkable way to finish an excellent dinner.

Bagatta is moderately expensive. Antipastos are $6 to $12. Primi are $5 to $12. Secondi are $17 to $19. The wine list is somewhat of a disappointment (even owner Bagatta admits this). At present, there is a modest selection of premium Italian wines, Brunello, Barbaresco and a few vintage Chiantis and Cabernets. Signore Bagatta promises improvements in the list soon.

BAGATTA

3012 Newport Blvd., Newport Beach, (714) 675-4020

Open for dinner Monday through Thursday, 6 to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6 p.m. to midnight; Sunday, 5 to 10 p.m. All major credit cards accepted.