RESTAURANTS : Malibu’s Merchant of Venice

Say the name Antonio Tommasi in connection with a restaurant debut, and you’ll have to fight a throng of fans on opening night. Tommasi is the Italian chef who created Locanda Veneta in ’88 and Ca’ Brea in ‘91, two of the restaurants that defined Italian cooking in Los Angeles. Last year, he and his partners opened Il Moro in West Los Angeles and Ca’ del Sole in the Valley. And now Tommasi has staked out Malibu with Allegria, a pizzeria and restaurant that features Italian country cooking with a Venetian accent. If the wait for a table on Friday and Saturday nights is any indication, he has another hit.

Allegria feels very much like the places Venetian friends used to take me to in the back streets of Venice. There’s the same long list of pizzas in every permutation from a basic Margherita (tomato, cheese and basil) to quattro stagioni (“four seasons,” divided into four quadrants, with a different topping on each). Only these pizzas are much better: thin-crusted, edges bubbled and browned from the oven, larger than their Italian equivalents but not overloaded with ingredients in the American style. But watch out: They come to the table so blistering hot, you’ll burn the roof of your mouth if you eat a piece too hastily. I’m still working my way through the list of 36. My favorites so far: Tirolese--a Margherita with speck--has a smear of beautifully modulated tomato sauce, a thin coverlet of molten cheese and strips of smoky, raw-cured mountain ham laid on top. The boscaiola is a mix of musky porcini, Portobello and oyster mushrooms with cultivated champignons distributed in discrete dabs. Anchovy lovers should try the “Napoletana,” garnished with capers and salty, delicious anchovies.

They’ve done as much as they could with the coffee-shop architecture, installed copper hanging lamps, spruced up the rough-and-ready wooden booths along the wall with damask velvet cushions in appropriately somber Venetian tones. The best tables are at the back, up against the big open windows that look out onto a hillside garden planted with bananas and giant bird of paradise.

Tommasi brought his brother, Valter, from Venice, the original watery city, to take charge of the kitchen here. And he’s good. Not only are the pizzas terrific, but much of the rest of the menu tastes like real country cooking. To start, there’s a fresh and inviting insalata di mare , a mound of tender calamari, shrimp and clams tossed with bright marinated peppers and slivers of artichoke and olive oil (all it needs is another squirt of lemon) or insalata di gamberi alla veneziana , a salad of delicate lettuces, plump cannellini beans and “river” shrimp dressed in olive oil and lemon. Insalata allegria is a refreshing, understated salad packed with watercress, arugula and endive and embellished with hearts of palm, pine nuts and avocado. Decent carpaccio comes buried under emerald arugula and good Parmesan shavings.

And I love Tommasi’s take on the ubiquitous and comforting pasta e fagioli , which is made in variations all over Italy. He gives it a Venetian touch by adding shrimp and baby clams to the pureed bean soup. Ask for a little extra-virgin olive oil to drizzle over the top and a grinding of black pepper. Just as homey is a soothing chicken soup laced with fat chunks of chicken, sliced potatoes and Swiss chard.

A painting of a masked Carnival figure feeding spaghetti to a costumed child is reproduced on the menu’s cover. It must be the spaghetti al torchio con frutti di mare in a light, fragrant tomato sauce studded with shrimp, clams and crab claws, which is exactly the sort of pasta you should be eating close to the sea. But you know you’re in Malibu when the fettuccine comes in a ragu --of chicken. Rigatoni is served in a green spinach and mushroom sauce; the coins of chicken sausage are overdoing it. Capellini alla checca , cooked al dente , is sauced with chopped organic tomatoes, lots of sweet basil and mild roasted garlic, one of the better versions I’ve tasted. Homemade tortelloni, though, are heavy and gluey. And sfogliata alle verdure , sheets of homemade pasta layered with zucchini, eggplant and mushrooms long with ricotta, is also overbearing. Stick with the dried-pasta dishes.

Pizza, salad, soup, pasta--these are the essentials of a casual summer Italian meal. The handful of carne e pesce on Allegria’s menu seems almost an afterthought. Osso buco is classic, veal shank with its marrow intact stewed slowly in a sauce of finely chopped vegetables. Allegria’s version of flattened Tuscan-style chicken is exceptionally good, marinated first and presented in all its crusty glory in a smoking-hot iron skillet with a sauce of the pan juices and a robust aged vinegar. “I pump up with these pans,” a waiter jokes one night. “They weigh 10 pounds!” Veal scaloppine, though, gets lost amid sauteed vegetables and too much sauce. A special of halibut is smothered in tomato sauce.

Allegria’s service is exemplary, thanks to the seasoned, unflappable waiters. “That’s going to be too much food,” the waiter cautions one night when we order. “ Tranquillo .” Go easy. We took his advice; he was right.

The wine list is made up mostly of obscure producers and/or off vintages. What about the 1985 Monte Vertine and the 1978 Barbaresco “Asili” Produttori del Barbaresco I glimpsed on a shelf? They belong to the restaurant’s “reserve,” I’m told. These two glorious Italian wines are wildly overpriced at $120 and $150, respectively. Thank you, but no.

Desserts are the same kind of plain sweets you might find in the cold case at a neighborhood trattoria in Italy. First of all, there’s crema di vaniglia , an irresistible creamy custard covered with a layer of caramel sauce. Cappuccino custard, just as smooth and cool, comes with dark chocolate sprinkles that look like coarse coffee grounds. Pass up the tiramisu for the ricotta cheesecake, a small round, dense and not too sweet, set down in a lovely strawberry sauce.

Allegria stands for gaiety or merriment. Far allegria means to enjoy oneself. And that holds true at this unpretentious new Malibu restaurant.

ALLEGRIA

CUISINE: Italian. AMBIENCE: Dressed-up coffee shop with hanging copper lamps, booths with velvet damask cushions. BEST DISHES: Any of the pizzas, insalata di mare , pasta e fagioli with shrimp and clams, boneless marinated chicken, osso buco. WINE PICKS: 1993 Renato Ratti Dolcetto, 1992 Pio Cesare Barbera d’Alba. FACTS: 22821 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu; (310) 456-3132. Closed Mondays. Dinner for two, food only, $31 to $52. Corkage $9. Parking on the street or in the small lot next door.