Pizza, Pasta--and Contorni

In Santa Monica, the salad bar has gone Italian. There are no big bowls of greens to choose from and you don’t serve yourself, but at the new Pizza & Contorni you walk up to a flying-saucer-looking circular counter where you are greeted by an array of good-looking contorni --and a good-looking Italian who will guide you through the selection. It’s the sort of concept that might just spawn a hundred clones.

The term contorni usually refers to the third course in an Italian meal, the vegetables or salad that accompany or follow the main course. But at Pizza & Contorni, the first U.S. branch of a chain that originated in Naples, the contorni are more like antipasti . Among the several dozen choices (the selection changes every day), there might be marinated zucchini, baby octopus in tomato sauce, roasted potatoes scented with rosemary, gnocchi in tomato sauce, eggplant slices topped with cheese and tomato sauce, spinach lasagne, frittatas, sliced roast beef, meatballs (“strictly American,” says the Italian behind the counter), steamed rapini. For $8 you get five choices, which are arranged on a plate and brought to your table. A waiter then takes your order for pizza and pasta, which are made to order. Pastas--spaghetti alla carbonara, penne with eggplant--are fine and the pizzas, thin-crusted, show promise. They’re made in a wood-burning oven, and once the pizza chef works out the idiosyncrasies of the new equipment, the crust problems that turned up last week should fix themselves.

Pizza & Contorni, 1333 2nd St., Santa Monica, (310) 917-2604. Dinner for two, food only, $15-$40.