RESTAURANT REVIEW : Cibo Offers Simple Food, Good Pasta

Cibo, on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, attracted me for two reasons: First, the narrow storefront with its crowded patio looked and sounded like a little European cafe. Second, Cibo describes itself as a Taverna Etrusca.

I’ve been to restaurants that aligned themselves with Tuscany, Rome, Perugia, Sicily, Naples, but never Etruria, an ancient province that existed roughly where Tuscany is today. (If Italy is a knee-high boot, Etruria is roughly at the kneecap.)

The Etruscans, who thrived from about 1100 to 200 BC, were notable for, among other things, a taste for luxury, a priesthood that could read the future and a non-Indo European language that has yet to be translated (though it employs the Greek alphabet). I wondered, then, why Cibo would call itself Etruscan rather than Tuscan. Does the decor reveal a pronounced taste for luxury? Is the menu untranslatable? If you eat the food here can you tell the future?

Cibo (pronounced chee-bo) has a lean, contemporary look, long on hard lines and molded concrete. It’s fashionable, but not exactly luxurious. There are round steel-topped tables balanced on concrete cones, and the clatter from these ringing tabletops can be deafening. One wall is cement molded into rectilinear patterns.

Cibo is larger than it looks: Past the open kitchen and down the long hall hung with black-and-white photos of Italy, there’s another small, pretty patio in the back alley. Frank Sinatra croons over the sound system just a little too loudly, adding a faint ‘50s nightclub sleaze. The waiters, all sporting tight black Cibo T-shirts, are young and chatty and manage, after a fashion, to do everything they’re supposed to do.

The first time I ate at Cibo, I asked our waitress what was Etruscan about the restaurant. “Oh, the food’s not really Etruscan,” she said. “It’s more just rustic. Simple food.”

To tell the truth, Cibo’s menu is a predictable variation of the now-typical Italian cucina cooking. Salads are fresh and barely dressed: The Caesar could have used more dressing, but the faint amount of dressing on the endive and radicchio salad was appreciated. I also requested more olive oil for my caprese --fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. The insalata di campo , said to have bitter greens, but actually composed of a standard baby lettuce mix, was nevertheless luscious and delicious with its simple olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Also simple, tasty and light were the mussels and clams in a tomato-garlic sauce.

Of all the courses I tried, I would say that Cibo does best with pasta. Fettuccine with prosciutto, peas and mushrooms had a lovely, light cream sauce, but might have been far better with more interesting mushrooms. Angel hair pasta with fresh hot tomatoes had good asparagus and delightfully tender chicken. The agnoletti sneaked up on us: The small squares of pasta filled with a bland spinach-ricotta mixture and topped with a pink sauce tasted terribly bland at first, and yet everyone at my table kept eating them. There was pleasure to be had in the slight gumminess of the pasta and the slow burn of chile in the pink sauce.

At one waiter’s recommendation, we tried the ultra-simple Siciliana pizza with tomato mozzarella and oregano. The crust was buttery, the cheese thick, bubbly and almost custardy. Another waiter recommended the wonderful pizza alla Adriatico, studded with sweet prawns, good fresh tomato and fresh mozzarella.

Entrees were less simple, less pleasing. I tried a veal chop special for dinner one night and got an unappetizing plate of meat served with colder-than-room-temperature vegetables. A chicken breast sauteed with big shrimp in a brandy-cream sauce had a slight aquatic flavor. Undeniably delicious, however, was a lamb special: a tender rack baked with rosemary and just enough mustard to give it a big kick of flavor.

For dessert there were fresh strawberries and tiramisu , period. The tiramisu was heavy on the cookie matter, short on the whipped rich mascarpone cheese, and therefore dry. The cappuccinos were respectable.

When all was said and done, the menu translated into straightforward, generally good food. As for the question of whether eating at this taverna Etrusca imparts one with ancient powers of premonition . . . well, we’ll see.

Cibo, 1246 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, (310) 576-7747. Open daily 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Beer and wine. MasterCard, Visa. Dinner for two, food only, $30-$66.