Venice Comes to Santa Monica : Do we need another Italian restaurant? If it’s Remi, yes

Remi is one restaurant that you wish could be two. Or three. Or four. It’s one of the few new restaurants that remembers why most of us go out to eat in the first place.

Remi’s not loud. It’s not bright. It’s not terribly trendy. The hostess doesn’t keep you waiting for your table and nobody comes along to hustle you out of your seat the minute that your coffee cup is empty. The room is extremely relaxing, the service is very good and the prices are pretty pleasant. On top of that, the food is delicious.

When you walk into Remi, you have the most amazing sense that the air has gotten suddenly heavier. It’s a trick of light that makes you feel as if you have gone underwater, where everything is slower, denser. Even the sound seems slightly muffled. Then you look around, notice that the room is crafted like a boat--curved portholes, slick wooden floors, sailcloth on the seats--and the whole watery experience is intensified. When the waiter hands you an Italian menu, it is Venice that you think of.

And it is an intensely Venetian menu. It begins with carpaccio (a dish that was invented at Harry’s Bar, a Venice institution), goes on to bigoli (a pasta so Venetian that the name itself is Venetian dialect), fegato alla veneziana , and ends with golozessi (Venetian cookies). There are a few detours along the way, but for the most part this is a menu that does not offer your ordinary California-Italian choices.

There wasn’t a single dish among the antipasti that I didn’t like. When the prosciutto d’oca was set down--a soft slice of smoked goose breast resplendent on a bed of greens--the luxurious smell of truffle oil came wafting warmly across the table. It made an already appealing dish even more so. The dish of grilled fresh vegetables was perfect--from slices of fennel to zucchini, tomatoes, radicchio and squash, each vegetable had a taste all its own.

The salads were delightful; I especially liked endive topped with thin sheets of Parmesan cheese and the slight bite of small marinated fish (not the advertised anchovies, but equally delicious whiting). Arugula salad with walnuts was pungent and delicious. But my hands-down favorite was squid in black ink with polenta.

This is not a dish for everyone. The squid appears as a pungent, evil-looking black stew that is an imposing presence on the table. The golden ring of polenta that encircles it is a wonderful mush. And the dish is big--too big: Add a salad and this would make dinner for the most aggressive appetite. Still, if you like food that bites back, this is for you.

Not your dish? Perhaps you’d prefer an upscale version of Italian comfort food: Whole wheat crepes with ricotta, spinach and tomato sauce. I defy anybody to dislike it.

Once you leave the appetizers behind, you have to choose more carefully. The risotto, for example, is as good as you’ll get in this town. The penne piccanti is a hot plateful of peppers, parsley, olives, capers and tomatoes all mixed with pasta and perfectly delightful. But for my money the ravioli “Marco Polo,” which is filled with fresh tuna and topped with little squiggles of fried ginger, is a dish that doesn’t work. And the gnocchi were distressingly limp.

But then there’s bigoli-- a unique Venetian pasta that is like whole wheat spaghetti with a hole in the middle (or if you will long, thin macaroni). The pasta is tossed with a small mountain of caramelized red onions and lots of anchovies. It’s a dish with punch that takes no prisoners. And it’s wonderful. I was a little distressed, however, to discover on my last visit that fettuccine had been suddenly substituted for the long thin tubes. Bigoli without bigoli just ain’t the same; the dish needs the texture of the firmer pasta to be totally successful.

The meat and fish dishes are less original than the first courses. There’s a nice involtino di pollo-- chicken breast rolled around smoked mozzarella and zucchini--and a fine grilled veal chop with mashed potatoes. I liked the liver with onions (although the polenta here--little grilled squares--was not nearly as good as the polenta that came with the squid). Grilled tuna was as good as grilled tuna gets, and the sauteed salmon was fine. Red snapper in an onion-and-orange vinegar sauce dotted with pine nuts and raisins was very appealing. I have been mysteriously unable to order the monk fish the twice that I’ve tried; the last time the waitress muttered something about the chef not wanting to serve it.

Desserts are surprisingly large; the broiled zabaglione is a pretty surprise--a star with ice cream in the middle. The chocolate cake with cappuccino ice cream is good. Still, I liked the cookies best.

After dessert you’ll want to try one of the grappas that are sitting on the cart in the middle of the room. Even if you don’t like grappa-- and lots of people don’t--you’ll want to get your hands on one of the pretty glasses it is served in. Twirling one of those gorgeous goblets is a great way to end a meal.

Remi

1451 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica. (213) 393-6545.

Open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for 2, food only, $45-$85.

Recommended dishes: endive salad, $7.50; squid with polenta, $8; penne piccanti, $12; bigoli, $12; veal with mashed potatoes, $24; chocolate cake with cappuccino ice cream, $5.50.