RESTAURANT REVIEW : Maradona Scores Handily : This time it’s the restaurant, not the famed soccer player, that makes its goal of service with a smile.

“Right away, my darling,” says Lucero Paez as she takes a drink order from a customer at Trattoria Maradona, an engaging little Argentine-Italian cafe in Studio City. Paez calls all of her customers “my love” and “my darling.” In short order, you realize that the affectation is motivated by a genuine sweetness.

Although she is a native of Peru, pronounce her name the Italian way, as if it were spelled Luchero . As you are bound to discover if you eat here more than once, Lucero has an Italian mother.

She is also married to the chef, Oscar Paez, a native of Argentina. That last fact explains why this colorful place is festooned with the flags of both Argentina and Italy--and a huge color collage depicting the exploits of Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona. The restaurant specializes in a mix of Argentine and Italian specialties, and you won’t need to be a soccer fan to appreciate them.

The modest location is unfortunately easy to miss. You’ll find it on Ventura Boulevard, just east of Vineland Avenue in a mini-mall already noteworthy for Sushi Nozawa. Look for a few umbrella-shaded sidewalk tables, the attribute that qualifies the cafe for trattoria status. Inside are but a few glass-topped tables and one undersized deli counter. The counter is where the couple displays a few specialties such as the famous Argentine meat roll matambre and an unctuous, raisin-filled bread pudding.

Have the cold, vinegary tongue ( lengua ) or an empanada de carne for an appetizer if you wish, but I wouldn’t think of starting a meal here without a few slices of matambre casero con ensalada rusa , that wonderful Argentine take on rolled beef--a long slice of meat rolled up with parsley, garlic and hard-boiled eggs.

On the other hand, those homemade empanadas aren’t bad at all. They consist of a rich filling of minced beef and eggs sealed in a flaky pie-type crust. Cut one in half and--surprise!--out falls a ripe green olive. What makes them work for me is the accompanying dipping sauce, chimichurri , a moss-green salsa of parsley and vinegar that the gauchos on the pampas traditionally favor on grilled meat. A few shots give an empanada added character.

Chef Paez makes three fresh pastas (in addition to spaghetti, fettuccine and penne , which are available with five different sauces). I’d describe all three as mildly eccentric. His ravioli, for instance, are chewy pockets filled with chicken and spinach, well suited to a classic salsa pomodoro.

Cannelloni Rossini are long pasta tubes with the same greenish filling, baked until the accompanying cream sauce sticks like a coat of paint on a car. Finally there is lasagna Giostra, two thick sheets of dough layered with ham, cheese and more spinach, this time coarsely chopped with onion. Crowning the dense square is a chunky Bolognese sauce, again seemingly without sweetening.

*

Grilling plays a part in any Argentine meal. At Trattoria Maradona, one wishes that the part would be more prominent, because two of Paez’s best dishes are grilled. One is bife de chorizo a la crema de pimenta , which turns out to be a rather fatty but tasty New York steak blanketed in a wonderfully peppery white sauce.

The other is a humble sandwich, suprema de pollo . It’s a lightly breaded chicken breast, redolent of garlic and parsley, stuffed into a dense bun along with a spread of mayo and lettuce and tomato.

Paez breads his steaks, too. Milanesa a la Napolitana may be rather oddly named--Milan is in the north of Italy, Naples in the south--but I’d really call the dish the South American equivalent of chicken-fried steak. It’s lean, breaded round steak treated like saltimbocca, topped with slices of ham, mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce.

Save room for the cafe’s bitter, foamy cappuccinos and for one of the sneakily rich desserts. Panqueque en dulce de leche is the one Peruvian recipe that Lucero has sneaked through. It’s a buttery crepe filled with a deep brown caramel confection, made from boiling condensed milk until it turns into something like custard. There’s also that raisin-filled bread pudding, which resembles a flan with slightly more body.

It’s the sweetest bread pudding this side of Buenos Aires, outdone on the sugar scale only by Lucero’s smile.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WHERE AND WHEN

Location: Trattoria Maradona, 11288 Ventura Blvd., Studio City.

Suggested dishes: Matambre casero con ensalada Rusa , $5.50; empanada de carne , $1.50; bife de chorizo a la crema de pimenta , $10.50; suprema de pollo (sandwich), $4.95; panqueque en dulce de leche , $3.95.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Friday; noon to 11 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Price: Dinner for two, $15 to $26. No alcoholic beverages. Parking lot. American Express, MasterCard and Visa.

Call: (818) 760-0789.