Left Coast Boast

Transplanted New Yorkers talk about their hometown lovingly until they actually have to go back. None of my New Yorker friends are nostalgic about belligerent taxi drivers, 6-foot snowdrifts or being jolted out of bed by a police siren at 3 a.m. But one thing most of them genuinely miss is New York-style Italian food, a genre unto itself.

The local antidote for that sentiment is Finbar’s, a cozy restaurant tucked into the rear of a Seal Beach office complex. Finbar’s belongs to Joseph Barbara, a graduate of California Pizza Kitchen. The restaurant name pays homage to a Roman Catholic church in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst section, where Barbara was reared.

The ambience at Finbar’s is more California than New York, despite the presence of an autographed snapshot of Gehrig and DiMaggio in Yankee pinstripes and a poster of the New York subway system hanging proudly next to the restaurant’s five-stool front counter.

The color scheme is a relaxing pale green. Tables are covered in butcher paper and set with fresh tiger lilies. Adding to the mood is cool jazz and occasional swing music that plays softly on the sound system. For a quiet meal, retreat to the bucolic patio. There the scent of beach air wafts by, and the plastic furniture is shielded by umbrellas emblazoned with a San Pellegrino logo.

Things get off to a flying start with a basket of house-made bread, accompanied by a dish of extra-virgin olive oil and a cruet of aceto balsamico. But this is no ordinary bread-and-oil ritual. The bread, warmed in the pizza oven before serving, is a crusty ciabatta made exactly like one from Augie Gallifi’s Italian bakery in Bensonhurst. And the fruity oil has been infused with rosemary and oregano, a terrific idea.

The sandwiches served at lunch, on this same bread, are about perfect. A huge, juicy, sweet Italian sausage sandwich is made Sicilian-style, with stewed green bell pepper and onion, or a la Napoletana, with red sauce and melted cheese. Dense homemade meatballs make another good sandwich. So does the simple combination of Genoa salami and provolone cheese.

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The restaurant shines with its pizzas. These aren’t quite New York-style pies, though. They’re made from a golden semolina dough and have thin, chewy crusts. Furthermore, many have distinctively California-style toppings. Getting New Yorkers to eat goat cheese on a pizza is no mean feat. Expecting them to order the barbecued chicken pizza might take a papal decree.

Perhaps the best of these modern pizzas is an off-menu BLT pizza that tastes exactly like you’d imagine--maybe better. The crust is piled with a particularly smoky bacon, chopped fresh tomato, a flurry of shredded lettuce and a light mayonnaise-based dressing. One more standout is cinque formaggi, a five-cheese pizza flecked with sweet basil.

Mozzarella Caprese employs fresh cow’s-milk mozzarella, which Barbara gets from New York, layered with good-quality Roma tomatoes and basil. The best antipasto at Finbar’s is baked stuffed mushrooms. These are caps stuffed with a forcemeat of bacon, spinach, onion, ricotta and fresh mushroom, in a reduction made from natural juices perked up with a splash of chardonnay.

Green salads are so finely chopped that they have a mulched quality, which isn’t very appealing. Have the house pasta e fagioli instead, a hearty red minestra that’s a map length away from the classic light brown, northern Italian white bean and short pasta soup. Finbar’s features a grandmotherly spicy tomato base with broad beans and shell pasta hidden at the bottom of the bowl.

Pastas could be wonderful here. Most are not.

Try any pasta with the restaurant’s slow-cooked “Sunday gravy,” probably the best marinara sauce I have tasted in years. Yes, this is nearly a masterwork--a tomato-based sauce perfumed with olive oil and onion and studded with meatball and sausage that have completely dissolved from the seven-plus hours the sauce simmers atop the Finbar’s stove.

Why oh why, then, does the kitchen precook the pastas to be eaten with this glorious sauce?

Chef Tim Blunt explained over the phone that there just isn’t enough time to prepare pastas al dente, because the restaurant has become so popular so rapidly. Perhaps. The result is still like great Bearnaise on ground chuck, or Parma ham between slices of Wonder bread.

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Spaghetti, linguine and cappellini tend to get mushy if they’re precooked; tube-shaped penne stands up better to the technique. The best pasta bet is simply to choose ravioli, which are cooked to order, instead. Ricotta ravioli have a wonderfully light, mousse-like filling. The heartier meat ravioli will remind a New Yorker of kreplach, the meat-filled dumplings that Jewish delis float in chicken soup.

Non-pasta entrees include a rich eggplant parmigiana, a fine grilled rosemary chicken that the restaurant calls chicken rustica, and a variety of garlicky shrimp dishes.

Among the fine housemade desserts, you can’t go wrong with N.Y.C. cheesecake, a dense, creamy version with a thick graham cracker crust (and no sour cream topping), or a custardy Key lime pie made with real Key lime juice.

Finbar’s is one of the more engaging restaurants to come down the Thruway in quite some time. When the kitchen starts serving pastas properly al dente, it is going to be one of the best.

Finbar’s is moderately priced. Appetizers are $4.75 to $5.95. Pizzas are $6.95 to $8.95. Pastas are $6.95 to $11.95.

BE THERE

* Finbar’s. 550 Pacific Coast Highway, Seal Beach. (562) 430-4303. 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. All major cards.