A Restaurant That Is Italian in Spirit if Not Ancestry

Ragazzi Ristorante, located near the Belmont Pier in Long Beach, is obviously an Italian restaurant. However, after two meals, I discovered that not one Italian works there. The owner isn’t Italian, nor the manager, the chefs or even the waiters.

I realize you don’t have to be Italian to run an Italian restaurant. Still, I would have thought it wise for an ethnic restaurant to employ at least one person from the ethnicity in question, just to keep things in line. Then I found out about the owner, Michael O’Toole.

O’Toole is so immersed in Italian cuisine that he has an Italian alias: Michelangelo O’Tooleino. At the moment, he is in Italy for his annual six-week visit to study the latest dining trends and return with new recipes.

“He was a surf bum, a surf rat,” says manager Jim Hurtado, adding that O’Toole was also an entrepreneur. In 1984, O’Toole and a friend opened Gondola Getaways, which offered couples rides through Long Beach’s canals, complete with a singing gondolier. The venture was a hit, providing a nest egg that enabled O’Toole to open Ragazzi five years ago.

With its rustic stone floor and dark wooden chairs, the blond rowboat hanging from the ceiling and the large windows that frame the beach 10 paces away, Ragazzi feels like a farmhouse that’s been lifted by a “Wizard of Oz” tornado from somewhere in Italy and plopped down on a Southern California beach.

Although some of the menu’s prices can reach lofty heights--a top sirloin with Chianti sauce is $24--you can order economically by picking dishes from the front of the menu, which offers small portions of the most popular entrees.

One of the best is the Gorgonzola and garlic ziti ($6), an Italian version of macaroni and cheese with deeply flavored Italian blue cheese. A big seller is the pasta Ragazzi ($6), which is penne with sauteed shrimp and artichoke hearts. Penne all’arrabbiata ($5.50) features Italian sausage in a creamy tomato sauce. A few of these would make a diverse dinner for two.

Toward the end of my most recent meal here, a haunting piano melody filled the room. The pianist was Rina Tinozzi--at last, a bona fide Italian. She turned out to be a frequent Ragazzi customer who plays the restaurant’s upright after dining. And she plays it well.

Ragazzi is at 4020 E. Olympic Plaza, Long Beach. (310) 438-3773. Open Tuesday through Sunday 5 to 10 p.m.