RESTAURANT REVIEW : Antipasto, Pastas Ritrovo’s Strengths : Food and service can be a mixed bag at the Westlake Village eatery.

The Critical Companion was not very critical as we left the parking lot. “That was,” the CC murmured as we drove out of the shopping center on the edge of North Ranch, “some of the best Italian food I’ve eaten in a while.”

That’s the sort of comment that frequently leads to vigorous disagreement over what was good and what wasn’t so good, but on this happy evening--not our first at this restaurant--we were very much in agreement.

Ritrovo sits in a fairly new shopping center, so far out on the edge of Westlake Village that it’s practically in Simi Valley. The restaurant has only been open a few months, and its operators, John Spina and Gino Setola, are new to the business.

Chef Johnny Piero, who comes from Sicily via Sardinia, works in an open kitchen of stainless steel looking out to a fairly large room. There’s a small bar as you walk in, and the whole place is set in a melange of pinks, beiges and mauves. Waiters roam the room in the traditional Italian outfit of black pants, white shirt and black tie, protected by long white aprons. Apron-less waitresses wear short black skirts and, as one said, would look a bit strange with long white aprons.

Starters at Ritrovo are a mixed bag. Insalata di Cesare ($5.50 lunch) comes out much too creamy and, to top it off, (pun intended) with much too much dressing. The fritto misto ($9.95 dinner), a mixture of deep-fried shrimp, squid and scallops, produces seafood that lacks the requisite firm textures, and the breading might have come out of a box.

But the antipasto buffet ($8.95 lunch) easily makes up for this. There’s tender eggplant wrapped around goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, and platters of fagioli e gamberi --white beans and bay shrimp, the shrimp cooked gently and the concoction sauteed in olive oil and white wine.

Perhaps the most traditional antipasto--especially for Romans, for whom this is a down-home dish--is the potato croquet, deep-fried mashed potatoes with mozzarella cheese wrapped in a crumb-and-egg breading. It’s served cold, but ask your waiter to have it warmed up--much better that way. Also, as a starter, the carpaccio ($8.25 dinner) gets high marks. The CC, who has tried this dish of raw, thinly sliced beef in perhaps 50 spots around the world, swears by it. This version arrives with olive oil and lemon and--a touch not always seen--capers.

Neither the CC nor I are enthusiastic about the pizzas. The Siciliana ($9.25), with black olives, capers, anchovies and spicy salami, is much too salty. The vegetarian model ($8.75) is cheeseless, but by the time it comes out of the oven, its mushrooms and eggplant are dried out.

So pass these by. Go directly from the antipasto and appetizers to the meats and pastas. There’s a small, range-fed chicken, the polletto Ritrovo ($13.25 dinner), grilled and pressed, and served--what sacrilege!--without garlic, but with luscious flavors of fresh herbs on a crisp skin.

And it was the lombata di vitello --a substantial grilled veal chop, also with marinated herbs--that introduced me to the restaurant’s simple but excellent sauteed side dish of fresh leaf spinach in olive oil and lots of garlic.

Ritrovo’s pastas, together with several other vegetable side dishes beautifully done, are the restaurant’s strength. The simplest of pasta dishes, the capellini filetto pomodoro ($7.95 dinner), is angel hair pasta in a light tomato sauce, with garlic, fresh basil and olive oil. It is so good I thought that both the basil and the tomatoes were fresh. Turns out I was half right--the basil was.

The penne ($7.95 dinner), although served in a variety of sauces, is at its best with a sauce of sapori eggplant, gooey mozzarella cheese, tomatoes and the fresh basil. Comes out with a sort of charred, smoked flavor.

Ritrovo’s service, much like the food, can be a mixed bag, ranging from slow and inattentive to cordial and professional. It took questioning of three waiters to correctly identify the crushed olives (calamatas) mixed into the olive oil that accompanies each meal--a superb flair with which to begin.

For dessert, we choco-holics have a field day with one particular dish, the chocolate brownie cake. Very rich, also very chewy, beautifully fine chocolate flavoring, without being too sweet. Made on the premises.

Details

* WHAT: Ritrovo.

* WHERE: 1125 Lindero Canyon Road, Westlake Village.

* WHEN: Cappuccino bar open Mondays through Fridays 7 a.m., Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m. Open for lunch 11:30 a.m to 2:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Open for dinner 5:30 to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

* COST: Lunch for two, food only, $16 to $44. Dinner for two, food only, $28 to $56.

* FYI: Reservations accepted, major credit cards accepted, full bar.

* ETC.: (818) 889-0191.