RESTAURANTS : Italian at Any Cost? Only If You Insist on Rich

Caffe Piemonte was born of shipboard romance. Owners Amy and Luigi Ravetto met aboard a cruise liner. She was a passenger; he was one of the chefs. They got married and started a restaurant.

A storybook ending--about a picture-perfect restaurant--would be pretty, and Caffe Piemonte is a big success, full even on weeknights every time I’ve visited, noisy and buzzing with obviously happy diners.

But what is wrong with this picture?

Well, nothing, unless you think about price or attitude. This simply decorated, mini-mall restaurant in Orange charges as much as $18.95 for a pasta dish, a price you’d be hard pressed to match even in magnificently appointed establishments such as the Westside’s Valentino. You pay a $14 corkage fee if you bring your own wine--the highest in Orange County and exceeded in Southern California, so far as I know, only by Patina in Hollywood, a restaurant with a far more sophisticated wine list.

The room is cheerful if narrow, mostly white, with yellow tiles and countless posters of the Piedmont, which lies just above the French Riviera and below the Swiss Alps in northwestern Italy. Chef Ravetto and the maitre d’ (his brother Giovanni) are natives of this colorful region, home of the white truffle and a hearty, rustic cuisine that is closer to French than to what we in America think of as Italian.

You won’t, however, find many Piedmontese dishes here. Much of what Ravetto cooks is the sort of thing found in most of our popular Italian restaurants: roast meats, creamy pastas, grilled vegetables. A few dishes, notably polenta and panna cotta (a baked cream pudding), do indeed come from Piedmont, but this menu is largely terra already pretty well cognita .

How enticing it would be if Ravetto offered carne cruda , the delicious Piedmontese version of steak tartare, or an authentic maltagliate , a rough cut pasta eaten with Robbiola cheese, pine nuts and arugula. The polenta here is made from imported Italian cornmeal, but instead of ordering it as a side dish, you have the option of getting it tarted up with a rich, overindulgent cheese sauce for $10.95, or with salmon and cheese sauce for $12.95.

To start a meal, you can’t go wrong with O.C.’s best version of fried calamari. The squid is cut into tiny pieces, dredged in a delicious light batter and skillfully fried. On the side, there is an abundance of fresh lemon and a bowl of fine, flavorful marinara sauce. If everything at Caffe Piemonte were as good as the calamari, I’d be more comfortable paying these prices.

You’ll also do well with the fine antipasto Piemontese, which varies from day to day and is invariably delicious.

When it comes time to order pasta, I recommend requesting the chefs go real easy on the sauce. Even when I requested mine light, it came up with more sauce than I have ever seen on a plate in Italy.

That said, you can order the pastas with confidence, because this kitchen never overcooks them. Farfalle al pesto is a trencherman’s version of the Ligurian favorite, in this case with far more cream than basil. Whole pine nuts are mingled into the sauce, which is also a touch heavy on the Parmesan cheese.

Penne puttanesca is another good one. This is the “without anchovies” recipe, its hearty flavors accented by capers, olives and garlic. If you don’t mind the price, special pastas such as gnocchi with lamb sauce ($16.95) and pheasant ravioli ($18.95), with mushrooms and cream, should be more than adequate for your main course.

Altogether, I prefer the main courses to the pastas. The best is probably bistecca alla Milanese--despite the name, not a beefsteak but a version of the well-known breaded veal cutlet. The kitchen handles this pounded cutlet with intelligence, breading it lightly, sauteing it to a golden brown and sprinkling it with butter, lemon and parsley. Arista di maiale al burro e salvia also succeeds because the kitchen treats the basic product, in this case pork loin, with respect. It’s cooked simply with sage and butter, and it’s a treat.

My swordfish, the fresh fish of the day, had a fishy aftertaste. Eaten as a main course, the restaurant’s deliriously buttery risotto with porcini mushrooms ($18.95) is wonderfully tasty, but more than anyone’s reasonable appetite possibly could handle.

Save room for desserts. Panna cotta , when done well, is one of the world’s great sweets, and this one is quite good. It’s a white, custard-like pudding topped by a thin layer of caramel sauce--smooth and creamy. Ravetto makes a good gianduja , chocolate cake with a hazelnut butter cream, and does a mean semifreddo , literally “half-cold,” vanilla ice cream with whipped cream and espresso.

I just wish he’d lose the habit of serving dreadful, commercial biscotti with every dessert. These rock-hard cookies lessen the status of these good sweets and dilute their effect.

Service rarely misses a beat at Caffe Piemonte. The staff is solicitous and friendly. There is a small market toward the back of the restaurant. Caffe Piemonte will be closed from Dec. 24 to Jan. 5.

Caffe Piemonte is expensive. Antipasti are $7.75 to $10.25. Pastas are $8.75 to $18.95. Main dishes are $16.75 to $21.50.

* Times Line(TM): 808-8463. To check an Orange County restaurant by name to see if The Times has reviewed it recently, call TimesLine and press * 6170 For other weekly recommendations from Max Jacobson, press * 6160

* CAFFE PIEMONTE

* 1835 E. Chapman Ave., Orange.

* (714) 532-3296.

* Lunch: noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Dinner: 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

* American Express, MasterCard, Visa and Italian lire accepted.