Talking Italian in San Marino

THE neighborhood restaurant is generally just what you’d expect -- a friendly, consistent place, with few pretensions, treasured by the locals and virtually unknown to anybody else. Sometimes, though, a neighborhood place, almost in spite of itself, outperforms the genre and word begins to spread beyond the immediate borders. That’s what’s happening with Trio Ristorante in San Marino. It’s already creating a buzz among the outlanders in the next neighborhood over, Pasadena. This new Italian is a live one, all right.

The food and the professionalism aren’t sheer luck. Two of the partners have put in time at high-end Italian restaurants all over the Los Angeles area. But instead of trying to clone Valentino or Drago where chef Mirko Paderno cooked or Celestino where sommelier Mauro Vitali worked (with Trio’s co-chef, David Moreno), they have poured the sum of the ideas they’ve collected over the years into this promising new restaurant.

Vitali has taken what was a standard-issue Chinese restaurant and given it a feasible Italian makeover. Squint hard and the sponged ochre walls could be worn frescoes. Leafy branches stenciled over the doorways and a niche filled with a milky pint-sized Venus on the half shell suggest a villa (or, at the very least, a tony bed and breakfast).

While the decor may be something of a cliche, the menu fortunately isn’t. Dishes are unusually interesting, not at all the same familiar roster. They’re going for broke here with a style that is more elegant ristorante than rustic trattoria, yet the room feels comfortable enough that the neighborhood tends to drop in without necessarily dressing up.

The first dish I tried, passatelli in capon broth, made me sit up and pay attention. First of all, capon broth? It’s rich and golden, as comforting as your grandmother’s chicken soup on a blustery winter night. Passatelli, for the uninitiated, are feather-light dumplings which taste primarily of Parmigiano-Reggiano. They’re made by passing the dough through the holes of a special device directly into the broth, sort of like making spaetzle.

Another standout appetizer is seppioline in umido, a tomato-based stew of thick, sweet pieces of cuttlefish and fresh peas. If you’re fond of bacalao, you might get lucky and find a special of flaky pieces of salt cod molded into a cake and perfumed with lemon oil. A Parmesan tortino (molded custard or flan) is unexpectedly lovely, topped with ribbons of lettuce hearts and anchovy.

One night the chef sent out a stuzzichino (little snack) of meaty green olives stuffed with mozzarella and rolled in garbanzo bean flour and fried. Served warm, they’re irresistible and the best thing about the fritto misto of vegetables, which is sometimes not as light as it should be.

Paderno goes to the effort of making his own ricotta daily. He might serve the mild ivory curds with tomatoes marinated in olive oil and herbs overnight or in his cannelloni di crespelle, crepes stuffed with ricotta and slightly bitter cooked chicory. At this season, it’s nice to find tiny green lentils from Umbria and homemade cotechino sausage. Fat and sweet with the taste of good pork, the cotechino brings out the earthiness of the lentils. In Italy, they’re eaten like we eat black-eyed peas or hoppin’ john here, for prosperity in the new year.

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Noodles of distinction

Of course, when it comes to the pasta section of the menu, there’s the obligatory spaghetti in tomato sauce, but why stop there when you can order a terrific maltagliati in pigeon sauce or tortelloni di zucca? Maltagliati means “badly cut” and these shards of fresh pasta dough with zigzagged edges are in a marvelous pigeon ragu, basic and delicious. Neat half-moons of pasta are stuffed with a puree of pumpkin that has both texture and the elusive flavor of pumpkin and amaretti.

A special pappardelle, chewy inch-wide noodles, is flecked with crushed bits of black truffle. The fragrance of earthy truffle and the sweet butter and Parmigiano that sauces these handmade noodles is deeply satisfying. I’d go back for these pappardelle in a heartbeat, but the kitchen only makes them when they have some truffle that’s getting old or have ends leftover.

When the young chefs decide to get fancy, though, they can get into trouble. Good quality, thinly sliced salmon one night is not well-served by the “carpaccio” of kiwi and sea urchin roe on top. The combination is bizarre. Tortellini made from salmon cured overnight with lemon and dill is served in a lobster broth so intense it obliterates the nuances the chef took such trouble to build into the tortellini. And I didn’t much care for a grayish breaded venison chop that seemed more like mystery meat than game.

With the exception of stuffed rabbit, main courses are more standard than first courses and pastas. That rabbit is definitely worth ordering. Formed into a roulade and wrapped in crisped pancetta, it has more flavor than most rabbit I’ve had in this country. Its juices are punched up with green olives and smoked porchetta (pork). Osso buco is made with lamb shank instead of the traditional veal here, and it’s delicious. Braised until it’s falling off the bone tender, it’s accompanied by meaty sauteed artichokes, a Mediterranean match if there ever was one.

Whole branzino, or striped bass, is baked under a salt crust, and expertly fileted tableside. It’s not salty: The crust serves to keep the fish from drying out. Garnished only with a thread of extra-virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, branzino is ideal if you want something simple and light. There’s a handsome veal chop too that could stand up to those at any restaurant in town. And for a big red wine, a big red steak for two, skillfully carved at the table and served with broccoli rabe in a dainty mold.

The service in general is skillful and attentive in all the right ways. Trio had been open only three weeks when I first visited, and while the restaurant, admittedly, wasn’t very busy that night, service was surprisingly smooth. It’s attentive without being intrusive and has a relaxed, leisurely pace. These are real waiters, not actor wannabes.

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A young wine list

Small new restaurants rarely have as much money left over to put together the wine list as they would like. Mauro Vitali clearly knows a lot about Italian wine, but his list still has some growing to do. Along with the usual pricey Supertuscans, he’s larded his list with simple country wines from Le Marche, the region where he grew up.

At Trio, it would not necessarily be a good call to skip pasta with the idea of rewarding yourself with a dolce. As almost any Italian will admit, desserts are not the country’s strong suit. If you do insist on ending the meal on a sweet note, however, tiramisu served in a cappuccino cup with a froth of whipped cream on top may be the best bet; dig deep for the espresso-soaked ladyfingers layered with mascarpone and cream. Chocolate fanatics (and there always seems to be one at my table) can get their fix with a warm chocolate souffle cake. And for the rest of us, there’s gelatina al Prosecco, red berries suspended in a clear, stiff gelatin of sparkling wine, probably the best choice after the riches of the meal.

Tiny San Marino has finally gotten its own neighborhood Italian restaurant. And the word is out. It was a smart move opening here, rather than Old Town Pasadena, where it would be less appreciated. If Trio continues to turn out consistently satisfying food, given Southern California’s undying devotion to all things Italian, I suspect this new Italian will be around for quite awhile.

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Trio Ristorante

Rating: **

Location: 932 Huntington Drive, San Marino; (626) 588-2627.

Ambience: Bright, cheerful Italian restaurant with sponged ochre walls, banquettes topped with mirrors and the occasional kitschy touch.

Service: Attentive and well-informed.

Price: Dinner appetizers, $9 to $11.50; pastas, $12 to $15; main courses, $23 to $27; desserts, $7.

Best dishes: Passatelli in capon broth, cuttlefish and pea stew, cannelloni di crespelle, cotechino and lentils, maltagliati with pigeon sauce, stuffed rabbit, lamb osso buco, veal chop, tiramisu.

Wine list: Limited as yet, but with some good Supertuscans along with simple country wines. Corkage $12.

Best table: The round table in the cor- ner, beneath the lovely statue of Venus.

Details: Open for dinner, 5:30 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and on Sunday, and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday; for lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Wine and beer only. Street parking; complimentary valet parking to come.

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