RESTAURANT REVIEW : The Courtly Old Days Return With Menello’s Tomato Sauce

It’s a dream of long ago, a dream of courtly maitre d’s, of dark red booths and dark red tomato sauces. Of old-time Southern cooking. Old-time Southern Italian cooking, that is.

Well, maybe not the dark red booths part, because Menello di Carmine is actually a soothing dove gray. The pretty little room that used to be Le Cellier is particularly charming in this incarnation, managing to be cozy and grandiose at the same time. Spotted among the melon-shaped sconces on the walls are 13 pilasters with Corinthian capitals pretending to hold up the ceiling.

Anyway, when it comes to courtly maitre d’s, nobody can beat Eddy de Bellagente. He spent 12 years at the old Villa Capri (which was always referred to in the movie columns as “Hollywood’s Villa Capri”) and then 15 years at Carmine’s. Bellagente is the son of an Italian count, and they don’t come any courtlier.

Menello does have a sweet, concentrated old-fashioned tomato sauce. When you sit down, a waiter is likely to put some little snack in front of you such as arancini , a deep-fried ball of risotto split in half and topped with tomato sauce. Without doubt, the best appetizer on the menu is the toasted ravioli. They’re the circular sort of ravioli, about the size of a yo-yo, only brown and crusty on the outside, filled with meat and dosed with plenty of that great tomato sauce.

I wish there were more appetizers with that tomato sauce, though there are probably a lot of people who have an affectionate regard for old-fashioned things like clams oreganata and stuffed mushrooms, both being stuffed mostly with bread crumbs. In fact, I’d go for more entrees with that tomato sauce, though whatever you order (if it’s not a pasta) you get some pasta in tomato sauce on the side.

This may all sound entirely old-fashioned, but one up-to-date thing about Menello is that it does not shrink from using hot pepper. Penne arrabbiata comes in a tomato sauce that’s actually hot. The most distinctive and possibly the best entree is calamari affogati , squid swimming in a dark, hot, slightly sweet sauce that you wouldn’t mind having as soup.

There are some pizzas on extremely puffy dough, the kind you definitely have to eat with a knife and fork. I once dared myself to order a special of steak and sweet pepper pizza, and it turned out to be the most nearly sensible steak pizza I’ve had, the meat cut thin enough to cook thoroughly and not raise disputes with the texture of the pizza.

I wouldn’t always count on the specials, though. A risotto topped with sweet sausage and shiitake mushrooms was bland and not at all rich; just a mound of rice. The only redeeming thing about a dish of overdone, watery whitefish was the fact that the undistinguished hash of tomatoes on top of it had a couple of pine nuts in it.

And I want to know something: Why, given the great tomato sauce Menello throws around here and there, is the chicken cacciatora so wretched? It’s the model that made the world tired of chicken cacciatora , just chicken cooked with tomatoes and supermarket mushrooms until barely done. Here’s where that great tomato sauce could have done some good.

The desserts are generally from the pre- tirami su era. A decent cheesecake with raspberry sauce in a little cup; chocolate tartuffo with a maraschino inside the ice cream, served with a stick of puff pastry; American pies and cakes. The chocolate mousse pie is particularly good.

Did you ever see a dream walking? Did you ever see a dream swathed in dark red tomato sauce? It was probably Menello.

Menello di Carmine, 2628 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. (213) 828-1585. Open for lunch Monday through Friday, for dinner seven days. Full bar. Valet parking. American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $51 to $72.