San Diego Spotlight : Chic Taste of Italy Detours Through San Francisco

San Francisco finally has discovered San Diego but, as befits Baghdad by the Bay, has chosen to send its regards in Italian code.

Il Fornaio, Piatti, Prego--these words translate as “the oven,” “plates,” and “don’t mention it,” the latter a phrase that on the surface makes no particular sense. But using a trio of menus as the key, the message can be deciphered as “San Diego diners should gratefully note that three major Bay Area restaurant groups have undertaken to redefine restaurant dining in your city.”

Il Fornaio, of course, is the hugely popular Italian restaurant that opened in Del Mar Plaza in 1988. Piatti, scheduled to arrive Dec. 1, will occupy the hallowed spot in La Jolla Shores that formerly housed Gustaf Anders. Prego recently opened in a free-standing building in a corner of the new Brickyard at Hazard Center in Mission Valley.

All three specialize in contemporary, regional Italian cooking--drawn mostly from the country’s midsection and northern regions. They have a common progenitor in Larry Mindel, a partner in the groups that own the Il Fornaio and Piatti chains and a founder of Spectrum Foods, whose several groups of specialty restaurants include Prego outposts in San Francisco, Beverly Hills and Irvine. Mindel and Spectrum have gone their separate ways, but Il Fornaio and Prego go head-to-head in terms of style; the exact style the local Piatti will take remains to be seen.

Although the San Francisco Prego opened in 1981, the local outlet justly could be described as a prime example of the corporate theme restaurant of the 1990s. Instead of the cutesy-pooh ghastliness of ‘60s and ‘70s theme eateries, the place presents a cool, sophisticated face and actually goes so far as to offer professional service and an excellent menu. This menu, too, seems a textbook example of what is in store for the foreseeable future and certainly shows that a trend has been set, because it shares much in common with the lists at Il Fornaio and downtown San Diego’s very popular Fio’s.

Prego occupies what it calls “an authentic Tuscan villa.” Anyone who drives past the structure on the corner of Friars and Frazee Roads can draw his own conclusions on that score, but what is more important is the restaurant’s size: It seats 325 indoors and an additional hundred on the enclosed terrace. In San Diego terms, this is immense.

The interior creates a deliberate effect: The open kitchen faces the entrance, so that arriving guests feel drawn into a a world filled by busy cooks, birds turning on spits and the sizzle of olive oil and garlic raging in red-hot pans. The dining rooms are high-ceilinged and finished in the faded peach and terra cotta earth tones of Italian hill towns. Enormous and wonderfully elegant floral arrangements bring needed color to the setting, which is impressive if not quite restful, because the place tends to be noisy when more than half full.

The menu opens with snack breads, an increasingly popular trend; the selection includes rosemary-garlic bread, crostini (toasts) with assorted toppings and focaccia stuffed with mozzarella and Fontina cheeses. All of these issue from Prego’s wood-burning oven (an essential feature at contemporary Italian restaurants), as do the slender, tasty grissini bread sticks served in narrow baskets and the pizzas and calzone.

The pizzas make a good shared starter, and the list offers mostly familiar choices, such as the quattro stagione or “four seasons,” a pie topped with artichoke hearts, prosciutto, mozzarella and mushrooms, and the spicy putanesca , which combines black olives, capers and oregano for a piquant effect. A house special, the alla provola , is garnished with smoked mozzarella and grilled eggplant. These pizzas are built on a thin crust that bakes to a tender and notably flavorful finish; one catches a faint, agreeable undertone of wood smoke.

The antipasti selection shows a good bit of imagination. Interesting choices include a warm carpaccio of thinly sliced raw beef dressed with asparagus tips and tomatoes; a chilled, stuffed artichoke doused with a spicy vinaigrette, and the gamberetti marinati , a plate that combines surprisingly tender shrimp with feta cheese and a suave, mint-flavored dressing. The mixed antipasto contains the usual meats and pickled vegetables, in this case handsomely arranged around a pile of milky-white, sweet-tasting, marinated squid rings. The soncino con anitra , an elegant salad of roasted duck breast, lamb’s lettuce and goat cheese, would be better with a less vinegary dressing.

Most of the pastas were novel just a few years ago but have become familiar, although this certainly is a good list. Ravioli stuffed with fennel and sausage tasted of neither ingredient and were a touch on the tough side, but a plate of agnolotti d’aragosta (half-moon-shaped pasta stuffed with ricotta cheese and minced lobster and prosciutto) burst with flavor and were ravishingly napped with a creamy, lemon and lobster-flavored sauce. Another good choice here would be the trenette di pepe alla checca , or narrow, pepper-flecked noodles tossed with chopped tomato, basil and garlic.

The spit turns out roasted chicken, duck and rabbit, all basted with olive oil and their own juices flavored with a bit of rosemary. A serving of rabbit was nicely crusted and very mild in flavor; the meat had an unexpected richness. Lamb chops in brown butter and herbs were simply adequate and not worth the bother given the menu’s other choices. The pinwheels of crisp, somewhat spicy luganega sausage had fine appeal, however, especially teamed with the rustic garnish of grilled polenta slices and pepper-tomato stew.

Prego puts immense effort into its dessert selection, which includes a rainbow array of gelati and as many as a dozen pastries, among them a deceptively simple, quite refreshing vanilla torte and the vastly more complicated torta ricciolina , with Sambuca liqueur flavoring and a rich nut-raisin filling.

PREGO 1370 Frazee Road, San Diego 294-4700 Lunch weekdays, dinner nightly Dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, $50 to $100 Credit cards accepted.