Pasta Plus

At Gioia, most of the customers seem to be regulars. Who can blame them? It’s a comfortable, welcoming place, and Sicilian-born chef Giuseppe Scalia handles all sorts of Italian food beautifully.

You enter from the rear through a quaint bar area furnished with some Art Deco wall art and an upright piano no one ever plays. The small main dining room features wooden chairs with dowdy floral-print cushions and banquettes upholstered in soft cloth. There’s also a trellised patio.

Soon you are being plied with complimentary bruschetta, but for a big blowout, you can start with antipasto Gioia, a pricey, opulent plate of things the chef does particularly well. The star is poached shrimp wrapped in prosciutto and set under a broiler until the ham is crisp. The supporting cast includes lightly breaded artichoke hearts, blackened portabello mushrooms brushed with balsamic vinaigrette and some green asparagus, simply steamed.

The pastas also show the chef’s skill. Agnolotti ai tartufo isn’t a neighborhood restaurant dish at all, but I’ll take it any time. It’s crescent-shaped ravioli stuffed with squash blossoms, cheese and quite a bit of white truffle oil. Then there is the rustic, most un-Woodland Hills pasta called pappardelle con ragu di cinghiale: broad noodles with a rich sauce of tomatoes and wild boar meat. It’s completely delicious.

Unlike a lot of chefs who shine at pasta, Scalia also works hard on his meat course. Stinco d’agnello brasato is a huge, tender lamb shank braised in a light thyme sauce. The basically creditable Atlantic salmon in potato crust has an excessively pungent basil sauce; but the sea bass (branzino) sauteed with potatoes, tomatoes and black olives, perhaps the most Mediterranean thing on the menu, is just about perfect.

Most of the side dishes are prepared with equal skill. Best among them are the mildly bitter, nut-like broccoli rabe, the sauteed spinach and the stewed Tuscan white beans (fagiolini).

About the only point at which things need any improvement is dessert. The tiramisu is OK, but the panna cotta (a baked cream, admittedly tricky to make) is unreasonably gummy; and the multilayered millefoglie pastry is stiff, and its cream filling is cloying.

So my strategy here would be to decamp to the bar after the main course and drink an espresso, or perhaps an Italian liqueur, and thank your lucky stars for this winning little find.

BE THERE

Gioia, 20969 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills. Lunch Monday-Friday, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner Monday-Saturday, 5-10 p.m. Closed Sunday. Full bar. Parking lot. All major cards. Dinner for two, $38-$59. Suggested dishes: antipasto Gioia, $20; agnolotti di tartufo, $12.75; pappardelle con ragu di cinghiale: $12.75; stinco d’agnello brasato, $18.75. Call (818) 347-3413.