A Dolce Vita Destination

Mulberry Street Ristorante takes its name from a famous street in New York’s ever-shrinking Little Italy. I’m not sure you’ll come away feeling as if you’ve been to the Big Apple, but then maybe you wouldn’t want to.

“Little Italy’s turned into a big tourist trap,” grumbles a friend who’s a born-again Southern Californian after a nerve-fraying year in New York.

By contrast, Fullerton’s Mulberry Street has a comfortable, lived-in, tourist-free feeling--the kind of relaxed atmosphere you find in places that have accumulated a substantial clutch of regulars, as this one has in its 16 years.

The exterior is inviting, with a jade-green canopy arching over wooden doors flanked by ivy-laced white ceramic bricks. Inside, you pass an attractive mahogany bar before entering the softly lit dining area, adorned with mirrors and a century’s worth of photos of Little Italy. On weekends, the main room is jovially boisterous; there’s a somewhat quieter dining niche to one side.

The fried mozzarella gives you a taste of hearty things to come. It’s a stout square of cheese with a nice crust and a satisfyingly chewy texture. Ladled with an assertively tangy marinara sauce, it’s enough for two, like most of the appetizers here.

In fact, appetizers are this place’s strong suit. The steamed mussels are tender and juicy and come swimming in a light, garlicky wine-and-cream sauce that plays well against the sweetness of the shellfish. Oysters Mulberry are a satisfying variation on the theme of Oysters Rockefeller. They’re topped with coarsely chopped spinach, bread crumbs, cream and grated cheese.

The shrimp cocktail is a fairly standard rendition, but the shrimp are plump and flavorful, and the cocktail sauce carries an eye-opening bang of horseradish. The calamari are smallish and fried to a popcorn-like crunch; not my personal preference, but I was in the minority at my table.

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Probably the quirkiest item is the artichoke hearts. They are sauteed in butter and olive oil, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and submitted to the broiler. It’s a basic, old-school treatment, except this item packs a startling dose of red peppers, somewhat soothed by a mild aioli.

Some simple, wholesome soups and salads round out the appetizer deck, which mostly turns out to be aces. The only dull item is the antipasto, a standard platter of cold cuts, cheese and garnishes. It’s not bad, but it isn’t going to wake up the parents.

Entrees run the gamut from meat to seafood to pasta, and there are stars in all categories.

The pasta itself is fresh and consistently cooked to fine, silky al dente texture. One of my favorite dishes is fettuccine Caruso, a purely American invention (or so saith James Beard in his “American Cookery”). It’s chicken livers sauteed with mushrooms in, as the menu justifiably describes it, a “rich brown Sherry wine sauce.” The result is a triumph of rich simplicity. The livers are velvety and their natural, sweetly acrid flavor is somehow echoed and softened by the excellent sauce.

Another homespun standout is the restaurant’s eggless version of fettuccine carbonara. The full-bodied cream sauce is laced with garlic, Parmesan and crisp flecks of American bacon, finished off with the perfect dash of nutmeg. It’s pure comfort food and actually hits more notes than pasta carbonara usually does.

I was less inspired by shrimp pineola because its rich sauce of olive oil, mushrooms and pine nuts was rather overwhelmed by an overdose of fresh basil. On the other hand, you can get good chicken Marsala here; the chicken is moist and the delicate sauce holds the flavor of the Marsala better than most.

If you’re in the mood for red meat, be sure to try the steak Mulberry, which I ordered on my first trip. It’s a beautifully tender slab of New York strip, broiled to juicy perfection (rare; yes, they do cook as you request). The brown brandy sauce, however, is what really flies it over the finish line. It is lent several dimensions of flavor, not only by mushrooms and onions but also by the interesting--and successful--addition of sun-dried tomatoes. By some turn of alchemy, this combination doesn’t trespass on the beef’s flavor.

On the other hand, my high hopes for the peppercorn steak were disappointed. I wasn’t quite as lucky with the cut of meat (it was just a little on the tough side), and the sauce didn’t mesh as well with the steak. I get a feeling this last shortcoming might have had to do with the fact that it was getting late on a weeknight and the kitchen might have have shifted into low gear.

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Whatever the reason, some of the dishes on my second visit didn’t have quite the touch they exhibited on the first. The robust and firm eggplant parmigiana, for example, was well-executed but tasted as if it had spent a little too much time under the warmer, as did the sauteed mahi-mahi and scallops with linguine, a rather unexciting dish. Both of these might well have been brighter at an earlier hour.

I expected a little more from the desserts, which are made on the premises. I did like the flan, which is sweet and voluptuous in texture, all doused with a light caramel sauce.

The tiramisu holds its own, and there’s a fairly good chocolate cake--somewhat dry, like the cherry cheesecake.

Mulberry Street is by now an Orange County institution. The food is good, the prices restrained, the atmosphere is equally friendly to first dates and anniversaries.

Appetizers $7.95-$10.95, entrees $8.95-$22.95, desserts $4.25-$5.95.

* Mulberry Street Ristorante, 114 W. Wilshire Ave., Fullerton. (714) 525-1056. Lunch, Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner, Sunday-Thursday, 5-10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 5-11 p.m. Late-night menu served Friday and Saturday until 12:45 a.m.