a taste of tuscany

forte dei marmi is a summer resort town on the Tuscan coast just north of Viareggio. In season, it’s teeming with visitors from Florence, Lucca and throughout Tuscany who make the drive to stroll, sit in a cafe or eat at enticing restaurants.

Forte dei Marmi also happens to be the hometown of Giorgio Baldi, chef and owner of Il Ristorante di Giorgio Baldi. This small Italian restaurant, known to most people simply as Giorgio’s, could easily stand in for one of the little places back home. The twinkling Christmas lights in the bushes out front mark the spot on West Channel Road in Santa Monica, just half a block from PCH. Roll-down plastic walls shield the four sidewalk tables from the elements. Regardless of what night of the week it is, the place is thronged with regulars from the well-heeled neighborhood. Without a reservation, it’s hard to get a table--unless you want to sit outside, as I frequently do because it’s quieter.

Keeping track of the comings and goings from a minuscule desk inside the door is Baldi’s daughter, Elena, who seems to be on kissing terms with most of the guests. Her father stays in the kitchen. In fact, I’ve never been to Giorgio’s when the cherubic Signor Baldi hasn’t been working furiously in the small open kitchen. And that’s exactly why Giorgio’s is one of the most reliable Italian restaurants in town. The cooking is earthy and direct, with a menu and long list of specials that hardly vary.

Primi, or first courses, include pasta e fagioli, here a seductive brown puree of borlotti beans festooned with ribbons of fettuccine. Swirled with peppery Tuscan olive oil, the dish is a taste of the Tuscan countryside. There’s also a delicious clam soup, basically just the tiny sweet shellfish and their broth--and a handful of fat white beans. The Tuscans have such a penchant for beans, they’re often referred to as mangiafagioli--bean eaters. Those same white beans show up in a salad of leggy soncino--that’s mache to the French--strewn with crumbled dark tuna. It’s not your rare ahi tuna, but the same gutsy Genovese-style tinned tuna in olive oil that goes into a proper Nioise salad. Baldi clearly isn’t cooking haute Italian-Californian, but basic trattoria fare, Tuscan-style. That said, a better-quality olive oil would improve this dish.

Giorgio’s is one of the few places where you can order spaghetti semplice--with a basic tomato-basil sauce--and get an Italian-sized portion. Of course, that may seem meager to diners accustomed to wolfing down the huge bowls of pasta served in restaurants where quantity wins out over quality. Baldi’s tomato sauce is typically light and understated, just enough to cloak each strand of spaghetti. His tagliolini are tossed with a similar tomato sauce and a medley of fresh seafood. Of the pasta dishes, the best is mezze lune (half moons) in brodo, veal broth. Instead of the usual butter and sage sauce, there’s a broth that brings out every subtlety in the veal stuffing. Supple fettuccine can be ordered with a rich and musky porcini ragu, a beautiful complement to the eggy, fresh noodles. And if ravioli sounds tempting, get the combination of lobster and asparagus-stuffed pasta napped in melted butter. The gnocchi may not be the lightest I’ve eaten, but they’re so expertly sauced in Gorgonzola and cream that the plate is usually wiped clean.

Secondi, or second courses, are relatively expensive for what they are. And, just as in Italy, few sound that exciting. Still, the veal Milanese is pretty good. It’s a bone-in veal cutlet pounded down and out to a quarter-inch thickness, big enough to drape over the dinner plate. It’s dipped in egg and bread crumbs and quickly browned. I just wish the veal had more flavor. Baldi also brings in branzino, or striped bass, from the Mediterranean, serving it just the way countless restaurants along the Tuscan coast do: simply grilled. Presented with a swatch of spinach and some roast potatoes, it doesn’t need anything but a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of olive oil. The langostinos, or langoustines, pale in comparison to the Medi-

terranean shellfish pulled fresh from the sea. There’s also a decent veal chop (topped with porcini mushrooms) and a charred bistecca fiorentina that’s fine, but not anything special.

The pace in the kitchen is intense and never seems to slacken. If you stay late enough, though, you’ll see Baldi come out at the end of the night to chat briefly with old customers before sitting down to enjoy a glass of wine.

Like any trattoria cook worth his salt, he’ll make regulars whatever they want. On a night when I had a late reservation and arrived ravenous, we asked before looking at the menus if we could get an order of fried calamari. It wasn’t on the menu. Yet minutes later, out came a platter-sized piece of brown paper heaped with crunchy, pale gold squid rings and tentacles garnished with lemon wedges. There was no need for the marinara dipping sauce; these were terrific alone. The waiter failed to tell us, though, that the calamari would set us back $16.

The food at Giorgio’s is not exactly underpriced. And the wine list displays serious markups, with some of the Supertuscans and Piedmontese reds in the $300 and $400 range. For the best values, relatively, look to the Chiantis from 1996 or 1997 from respected estates such as Fontodi, Frescobaldi or Felsina, especially the latter’s Castello di Farnetella, from vineyards technically just outside the Chianti Classico zone in the Colli Senesi appellation. In whites, it’s even harder to find anything close to a bargain. The popular Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio costs $38, and Ceretto’s fizzy Arneis Blange--white wine for people who really don’t like wine--is $35.

Like many Italian restaurants, Giorgio’s doesn’t make a big effort with desserts. The best are the rather plain ricotta cheesecake and the torta della nonna, or grandmother’s cake, with a heart of pastry cream. You can also try the imported fruit sorbets, which feature lemon piled into a hollowed-out lemon, peach in a fuzzy-skinned peach, coconut in a coconut shell, and so on. They’re like a refreshing taste of summer, which seems appropriate just yards from the beach. In fact, you might want to arrive at Giorgio’s early enough to stroll along the ocean and turn Santa Monica, just for the evening, into a Tuscan seaside resort.

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Il Ristorante di Giorgio Baldi

114 W. Channel Road,

Santa Monica,

(310) 573-1660

cuisine: Italian

rating: ee

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AMBIENCE: Cozy and clamorous seaside trattoria with handful of sidewalk tables. SERVICE: Assured and efficient from mostly Italian waiters. BEST DISHES: Pasta e fagioli, mezze lune in brodo, fettuccine with porcini sauce, gnocchi in Gorgonzola sauce, grilled branzino, veal cutlet, torta della nonna. Appetizers, $7 to $16; main courses, $11 to $30. Corkage: $15. wine PICKs: 1997 Pinot Grigio Collio, Livio Felluga, Friuli; 1996 Chianti Colli Senesi Castello di Farnetella, Tuscany. FACTS: Dinner daily. Valet parking.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. eeee: Outstanding on every level. eee: Excellent. ee: Very good. e: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.