RESTAURANT REVIEW : Old-Style Pizza Is Still Primo : Jacopo’s and its menu of homemade doughs, sauces and colorful salads has come to a cozy sit-down cafe in Encino.

I ate my first Jacopo’s pizza in 1976, the year I arrived in Los Angeles.

Back then, when most people wouldn’t have taken a duck sausage pizza if you were giving it away free, Jacopo’s was a reliable place for a good old-fashioned tomato-mozzarella- and-your-choice-of-toppings pizza pie.

Frank Arno, proprietor of the original Jacopo’s on Beverly Drive, eventually sold out to his chef, Barry Fogel. Fogel now has five Jacopo’s restaurants, the newest being a small Encino cafe.

Remarkably, Jacopo’s pepperoni pizza tastes exactly the same today as it did 20 years ago. But you say you want a modern, California-style pizza? You can have it, with toppings like shallots, black beans or barbecued chicken. No problem . . . if that’s what you want (although personally, I’ll still take the pepperoni). In fact, Jacopo’s Encino offers many more options than old-time pizza or new-style pizza--more options than pizza.

This is a cozy, sit-down place. The narrow room has a pleasant, old-time look, with its shiny hardwood floor and red-and-white checked table linen (that’s linen, as in cloth--not oilcloth or plastic). The restaurant does get cramped and noisy at peak times, but there are compensations. Both the kitchen and the service, for instance, are speedy and efficient.

And this is much more than a pizza joint. The menu tips it, boasting that the restaurant makes all of its dough and sauces on site, that the house olive oil is first-press extra virgin and that the ribs and chicken are hickory-smoked in the back. Then you notice the enormous platters of colorful salads and pastas being carried to neighboring tables, and you may end up eating at Jacopo’s without ordering pizza at all.

Fogel freely admits that the inspiration for his irresistible “Barry’s garbage salad” was the famous La Scala chopped salad, once the rage of Beverly Hills. It’s diced chicken breast, bacon, lettuce, red cabbage, hard-boiled egg, watercress, provolone, garbanzos, olives, scallions, tomatoes and . . . phew! I’m out of breath. This finely minced salad is big enough for three and a steal at $7.50.

You want appetizers? Fogel’s got appetizers. The fried artichoke hearts are lightly sauteed in a touch of olive oil, rubbed with garlic and dusted with imported Pecorino Romano. Marinated roasted peppers come with tomato, basil and crisp slices of grilled eggplant.

I wouldn’t advise it, but the menu suggests a half rack of baby back ribs in a tangy, tart barbecue sauce as an appetizer. (It’s good, but take my word: It’s really a main course.) A more moderate choice would be minestrone soup, in effect a pasta e fagioli dolled up with carrot, celery and Swiss chard.

The pizzas are still ahead, but it’s easy to get sidetracked by the sandwiches and pastas. The watercress egg salad sandwich comes as a particularly creative surprise. It’s loaded: radicchio, smoked Gouda, Pommery mustard and what must be at least two hard-boiled eggs. Radicchio also appears in a so-so New York steak sandwich. This one might be a smash were the meat more tender. As it is, served on a crusty roll moistened with olive oil, it’s merely acceptable.

Rigatoni alla Thea has the al dente pasta tubes virtually floating in a pink tomato cream sauce, with fresh peas and bits of sweet Italian sausage. Pasta Jessica is pureed spinach, sun-dried tomato and chopped garlic mixed with fettuccine. I like pasta Amiri, a modest amount of linguine with a simple topping of garlic, oil and crushed red pepper. Traditionalists can count on spaghetti and homemade meatballs, the latter being as light as good matzo balls.

And oh, brother, can they count on pizza. Ventura Boulevard is lined with pizza parlors. Still, for the familiar medium-thick, full-flavored type of pizza, the kind with the bottom faintly dusted with flour, I’ll take this place hands down over any other in the neighborhood.

Every table has the old-fashioned metal stand for holding the pizzas, and more than 25 classic toppings are available. This is not a retro-diner, of course, and Fogel sells about a dozen “contemporary” pizzas with titles such as Santa Fe, B-B-Q chicken and roasted garlic and shallot.

Unfortunately, the Santa Fe is a gloppy mass of black beans, corn, salsa, sour cream, melted cheese and a chipotle tomato sauce.

The garlic and shallot pizza--basically, a white pizza overdosed with smoked Gouda--has a nice bite, but I’m forced to admit that this B-B-Q chicken pizza has too much sauce to be manageable.

But I’d come back for a Jacopo’s pepperoni any time.

As for the notorious California duck sausage pizza . . . well, you will have to look elsewhere for that one.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WHERE AND WHEN

Location: Jacopo’s, 16161 Ventura Blvd., Encino.

Suggested Dishes: Fried artichoke hearts, $4.50; Barry’s garbage salad, $7.50; watercress egg salad sandwich, $5.75; pizza, $2 to $18.25; spaghetti and meatballs, $7.

Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

Price: Dinner for two, $16 to $25. Beer and wine only. Street parking. American Express, MasterCard and Visa.

Call: (818) 789-9998.