Loafing by the Beach

Seated at the counter of Il Fornaio Della Spiaggia in Santa Monica, I ask myself why I don’t go out for lunch more often. It’s a sweltering day downtown, and here I am in a smart, spacious restaurant, sipping an icy fresh lemonade and reveling in the sea breeze blowing through the open doors. The lunch rush is over, and I have a bird’s-eye view of everything going on behind the long expanse of marble that fronts the open kitchen. The chef and other cooks are bantering with the waiters in Italian when a group of young Italian tourists wanders in, some of them wondering aloud what they should order. A pizza? “It’s $10,” explains one wide-eyed Roman to her friends, “so it must be big.” This is, after all, America.

The Italians settle into one of the booths while I watch a cook carefully slice tomatoes and mozzarella for my Caprese salad, tucking perfect, and huge, leaves of basil under the slices. The portion is generous, but it’s not a great version because the tomatoes are underripe and flavorless. So much for looks.

Meanwhile, a pizzaiola slides the Italians’ pizza from the mouth of the wood-burning oven, the cheese still bubbling on top of the tomato sauce. Then, in goes my Toscana chicken, a plump half-chicken that’s finished off in the oven and served with decent mashed potatoes and asparagus. Slightly smoky, the pink, juicy chicken is excellent, though I wonder who can eat it all for dinner, let alone lunch. I see a doggie bag in my near future--not that I intend to forgo dessert after I see a goblet of fresh berries topped with zabaglione sail by.

Il Fornaio (The Baker) started as a chain of bakeries in Italy. When I discovered the pristine little bakery in Rome years ago, I couldn’t stay away. I dropped in almost every morning for a flat cornmeal cake or a little panettone laced with raisins and candied fruit, and again before dinner to pick up some ciabatta, Lombardy’s slipper-shaped loaf, or olive bread. When the first Il Fornaio in the United States opened in San Francisco in 1980, I was ecstatic. Later, entrepreneur Larry Mindel took over the struggling company, and Il Fornaio America moved into the restaurant business, becoming one of the most successful high-end chains in the country. With Il Fornaio della Spiaggia (The Baker at the Beach), the company now encompasses five bakeries and 15 restaurant-bakeries.

In Santa Monica, Il Fornaio has snagged a prime location at the corner of Colorado and Ocean avenues, just across from the Santa Monica Pier. The design plays up the beach theme with blue-and-white-striped canvas banquettes and striking paintings of bakers in the saturated colors of houses on the island of Burano near Venice. A large outdoor patio looks out on Ocean Avenue and the palisades, and down a few steps is the retail bakery, with its signature display of freshly baked loaves.

The bread you get the minute you sit down is inviting: fat bread sticks with the same ineffable crunch as those from Turin in Piedmont, a lovely rosemary bun and ciabatta. But you have to be quick to head off the servers intent on pouring a pool of olive oil and a splash of aceto balsamico. Bread this good doesn’t need a thing.

Il Fornaio’s theme may be Italian, but the food is, in its way, just as American as it is Italian. The restaurant format is successful because it has adapted Italian cuisine to Americans’ changing tastes. That means, first of all, everything is served in monumental portions.

Appetizers are certainly large enough to share. Order the fried calamari and you get a huge pile of crisply fried squid with, oddly, a marinara sauce more suitable for spaghetti. A special focaccia, a long envelope of dough stuffed with fontina and pink slices of pork, is delicious. So are the halved artichokes baked under a coverlet of bread crumbs and the large shrimp (another special) given more or less the same treatment. The pizzas are only OK. The toppings aren’t that tasty and every time I have one, the bready crust is slightly underbaked.

When it comes to ordering pasta, the plainer the better. Spaghetti alla bolognese is sauced in a nice rendition of Bologna’s classic meat sauce. You can’t go wrong with the marinara either.

Stuffed pasta is another story. Ravioli di verdura has a Swiss chard stuffing with a lovely texture, but the pasta dough is leathery. And the ravioli stuffed with lobster is awfully rich.

As for main courses, the rotisseried rabbit is terrific. Wrapping it in pancetta and roasting it over a wood fire crisps the skin while rendering the meat moist and flavorful. That roasted Tuscan chicken and the chicken marinated in lemon juice and herbs and cooked under a brick are both succulent. Fish is also cooked well here, particularly the beautiful grilled salmon set on a bed of grilled turnips and other baby vegetables. Chilean sea bass, never my favorite, is perfectly fine served on grilled vegetables and a plate striped with balsamic vinegar. And one night I gladly share the grilled striped bass for two, which is simply prepared, fileted and garnished with a little olive oil and lemon. What I haven’t liked are dishes with elaborate sauces, such as the roast duck coated in a thick, black wine reduction or a special sauteed chicken breast in a cloying Madeira sauce.

Though you may feel stuffed, your waiter will try to ply you with desserts. He arrives with a trayful to entice you, but the sweets all look a little weary. Zabaglione, the classic sauce of egg yolks and sugar beaten with Marsala, gets tarted up with orange sorbetto and whipped cream. That big snowball is zucotto, a sponge cake with a heart of gooey hazelnut mousse. Neither one is very good. But there’s a fine macadamia nut tart layered with marzipan and a refreshing affogato al caffe, vanilla bean ice cream with espresso poured over.

Many restaurants schedule the occasional special night or menu featuring a particular cuisine, but at Il Fornaio, armchair traveling is a frequent option. For two weeks every month, diners are invited to visit a different region of Italy. Each regional menu consists of a handful of appetizers and main courses. Dishes are often interesting but not always well-executed, especially if you try them on the first couple of nights they’re offered.

Here by the beach, as at the other locations, Il Fornaio is open all afternoon, so you can come in for a very late lunch, an early supper or an espresso and some pastry. When it’s quiet, the waiters are less harried, and it’s a pleasant place to while away an hour or two with a friend or over a book. At this mid-range, all-purpose Italian restaurant, you can order what you like, American-style.

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Il Fornaio della Spiaggia

CUISINE: Italian. BEST DISHES: Fried squid, stuffed focaccia, roasted artichokes, grilled salmon, chicken cooked under a brick, Tuscan chicken, affogato. WINE PICKS: 1996 Alois Lageder Pinot Grigio, Alto Adige; 1995 Terrabianca “Scassino,” Tuscany. FACTS: 1551 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica; (310) 451-7800. Morning pastries and lunch weekdays. Dinner daily. Brunch weekends. Appetizers, $5 to $10; pastas, $10 to $16; main courses, $13 to $19. Corkage $10. Valet parking.