An Italian Heirloom : Luciana’s Old World menu and style delight.

The dining public is fickle and it has an amazing number of choices nowadays, so it’s reassuring to find a local restaurant that’s lasted long enough to be handed on to a new generation. That’s exactly what has happened at Luciana’s, currently run by Jorge Luhan II.

In the mid-’90s, Luhan’s mother, the original owner and chef, moved to Tuscany, where she now runs a country inn and an olive oil operation. Luciana is an abbreviation of her name, Lucia Anna. Her son stayed behind to run the restaurant, a charming cottage serving a mixture of old Italian recipes and newer ones developed by current chef Brett Young, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America.

Even if rustic Italian cooking doesn’t move the earth under your feet (which would put you in the minority), Luciana’s charms are hard to resist. No other Orange County restaurant has a more unpretentiously European air. The bar and library (a small dining room) are the same pleasing straw color of restaurants throughout Italy. The sideboards are stocked with vials of herbed olive oil and bottles of balsamic vinegar.

The main dining room is white brick, offset by a beamed ceiling of unfinished wood. The walls are decorated with copper pots, Italian ceramics, pencil sketches and rusty farm utensils, the tables set with blue-and-white tablecloths and votive candles. A roaring fireplace actually warms the room efficiently on chilly evenings.

Your meal gets off to a roaring start too, with a basket of warm olive and ciabatta breads and a dish of chipotle mayonnaise. (That isn’t an Italian item, of course, but Luhan’s father, who hails from Argentina, has a soft spot for it.)

The antipasto list is creative, to say the least. One of my favorite dishes from it is fagiolini verdi, fresh green beans fried in batter and served with a delicious garlic and chile-infused mayonnaise on the side. The beans are light, crisp and flavorful. They also are a huge improvement over the fried zucchini that so many Italian restaurants insist upon. And the antipasto della casa, served for two, is virtually a meal--grilled tiger prawns, bruschetta, mozzarella Caprese, cured meats such as soppressata prosciutto, grilled eggplant rolled around goat cheese and tender fried calamari with marinara sauce.

The homey soups and savory salads are nicely put together. Heading the list is a rustic Italian potage, zuppa campagnola (called pappa al pomodoro on most other menus). It is a variation on tomato soup, but what a variation. This zuppa is made from day-old bread, tomatoes, onions and lots of basil. The bread soaks up the tomato and becomes almost as soft as porridge. When it’s made well, as it is here, hardly anything in the world is more comforting.

The best salad might be insalata di spinaci. It’s baby spinach and radicchio tossed with caramelized pecans, goat cheese, Gorgonzola cheese and crunchy caramelized pecans, plus a fair bit of balsamic vinegar. It may sound excessive, but it isn’t.

You can count on a nice Caesar with thin, pungent slices of Asiago cheese. I’m less enamored with Mediterranean, basically Greek salad with a balsamic vinaigrette. The elements are tomatoes, red onion, Kalamata olives, feta cheese and cucumbers. Unfortunately, my tomatoes were mealy.

The pastas are cooked al dente and usually served with lots of rather rich sauce. If you ask for light sauce, though, the chefs understand. The best pasta I’ve had was a terrific fettuccine Bolognese, a tangle of perfectly cooked noodles moistened with just enough veal ragu to turn them reddish pink.

Another reliable choice is the ravioli, still made daily by Luhan’s 85-year-old grandmother. They’re thick and chewy, with a stuffing of braised veal cheeks. It’s flavorful enough--but be prepared; Grandmother likes cumin, which you might not be expecting.

Most secondi, or main dishes, are luxurious. Bigotino di vitello is veal medallions stuffed with oven-dried tomatoes, French green beans and Fontina cheese, sauteed, then topped with a reduced veal stock. It’s good, but the combination is almost embarrassingly rich.

Pollo Parmesano is a basic pounded chicken breast encrusted with Parmesan cheese, then given an eccentric twist by an unusual sweet corn and tomato sauce. Costoletto di maiale, my favorite entree, is a double-thick grilled pork chop with a dark balsamic vinegar glaze on the surface. A fish of the day is served with creamy garlic potato puree. Grab the grilled sea bass, if available.

Service is careful and attentive, and the wine list, while not killer, has a fair number of Italian whites such as Arneis and pinot grigio, more than a dozen Chiantis and lots of top-drawer California cabernets.

Desserts include a slightly gummy flour-less chocolate cake served with made-to-order whipped cream, a nice creme bru^lee and the inevitable tiramisu, which I did not taste. My evenings at Luciana’s put me in a European frame of mind, and tiramisu has become as American as a burger.

Luciana’s is expensive. Antipasti are $2.95 to $7.95. Soups and salads are $4.95 to $13.95. Pastas are $9.95 to $16.95. Main dishes are $12.95 to $21.95.

BE THERE

Luciana’s, 24312 Del Prado, Dana Point. (949) 661-6500. 5-10 p.m. Sunday- Thursday, 5-11 p.m. Friday- Saturday. All major cards.