Luci Luhan’s What’s Cooking: It’s Definitely Upscale--and Terrific

Luci Luhan’s What’s Cooking is about as upscale a take-out as you’ll find anywhere, though it is also a sit-down restaurant with a rustic, homespun ambience and a gigantic, fully open kitchen.

It’s located in a corner of a far-flung mall at the end of Newport Beach’s San Miguel Drive, a handsome, woodsy place with displays of Jacopo Poli’s handblown grappa bottles and Luhan’s olive oil, her own bottling direct from a property she owns in Tuscany.

The cooking here may not specifically be Tuscan, but is solidly northern Italian and mostly terrific. Luhan owns Luciana’s Ristorante in Dana Point and the relatively new Luci’s Bayside Bar and Grill on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach, so she knows her way around the Italian culinary map. Her menu tells you that you will be eating handmade pasta, also that her restaurant has been doing it since 1976, earliest of anyone in Orange County.

It’s actually better--and cheaper--to put a meal together for large groups here. Literally dozens of hot and cold starters, soups, salads, pastas and entrees are available at quite-reasonable rates designed for eight to 10 or 18 to 20 people.

Putting a dinner for four together is a different matter. You should love it, but it’s gonna cost you (about $55 to $80). One way to economize is by starting out with one of these good breads or fresh pizzas, hot from Luhan’s wood-burning oven. The sweet onion focaccia is a thin-crusted masterpiece, more of a tomato-less pizza than puffy bread, but a wonder nonetheless.

There’s a delicious antipasto consisting of white beans, roasted peppers, grilled eggplant, bufala mozzarella, ham and incredible olives, though it gets a little thin for four so try a double order. Calamaretti, lightly fried baby squid, is easier to share, though you may have to reheat it when you get home. You could also venture a salad like the one with fresh spinach, rotisserie chicken and a balsamic vinaigrette. Not to worry; these people are smart enough to put the dressing in a separate container.

Pastas are extremely pricey, starting at $7.95 for good spaghetti with crushed garlic and hot pepper, all the way up to $16.95 for linguine Luciana, with a topping of fresh seafood in a light tomato sauce. There are excellent handmade gnocchi, too, but even better is the good risotto, packaged intelligently in an aluminum foil tin. Ours, fragrant with fresh porcini mushrooms, stayed hot for almost a half-hour.

The budget can get out of control should you opt for grill and rotisserie specialties, though I must say What’s Cooking’s pollo arrosto, or rotisserie chicken, is as good as you’ll ever taste. (The bad news is that you get a pauper’s portion, a small half chicken, for $13.95, with vegetables.) And forget those high-calorie ice cream desserts--which don’t travel well--and go for something like biscotti e vin santo, easy to share and immutably Italian.

These are hard little almond cookies that you dip in a sweet Italian dessert wine, and they’re a dessert you can enjoy without guilt. Oh, and I hope you’ve got your own espresso machine. You’ve probably spent enough on this dinner as it is.

WHAT’S COOKING

2632 San Miguel Drive, Newport Beach (in the Newport Hills Shopping Center).

(714) 644-1867.

Lunch Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday till 11 p.m.

American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted.