Far from the marinara crowd

All the signs are there, even if there isn’t an actual one above the door. There’s the Humvee with darkened windows idling at the curb. The strip of a window lighted with votive candles. The stealthy silhouette of a wine glass projected near the door. And, of course, the procession of young women, teetering on their Jimmy Choos, intent on getting inside. The guy in the Humvee steps out to see if there’s possibly a table. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Benvenuti, ladies and gentlemen, to Dolce, L.A.’s first truly hip Italian restaurant.

Wait a minute, you might say. Isn’t Italian all about tradition and marinara sauce and suave waiters? If anything, the antithesis of hip.

Not in this mix. Figure in a designer known for his edgy style, a young chef who has worked in top Italian kitchens around town and a sommelier from L.A.’s fanciest Italian restaurant. Shake it up with a slew of actor-investors, including Demi Moore’s current dreamboat Ashton Kutcher, and an aggressively young, celebrity-hunting clientele in their wake. Insert an eclectic soundtrack that comes on stronger as the night progresses. Cap it off with a bar where flames lick the bottoms of liquor bottles. The effect is really something: Dante’s Inferno as theme restaurant.

The concept was dreamed up by the people behind the Hollywood club Belly, masters at generating buzz. One night I watch as a young couple slide into one of the padded, black-leather banquettes for two. She eyes the photo mural of the Arno River in Florence, the twists of funereal cedar saplings in the windows, and takes a tentative sip of rosso. “I like this place,” she tells her date definitively, slipping off a stiletto mule.

Dodd Mitchell, the designer behind Falcon, Avenue and Katana, has done up Dolce in black-leather tablecloths that fit as closely as vinyl fetish outfits in the window of Dream Dresser. Curved booths upholstered in more sensuous black leather are capacious enough to hold a modest posse. At the bar, there’s a solid phalanx of summer babes in backless dresses, slurping cocktails and nervously tossing their manes. Smokers are relegated to the “garden,” a chic, narrow patio outfitted with Philippe Starck’s transparent plastic Ghost chairs in the style of Louis XVI.

As soon as you sit down, you get a small plate of spicy salami, a little ricotta salata and some olives as a welcome. Someone pours a pool of limpid, green olive oil onto a white plate, and sometimes it’s the prized Affiorata from Mancianti. Waiters insist on giving a rundown of the large menu whether you’re interested or not. I’m hoping the purpose is to inform anyone too embarrassed to ask about unfamiliar dishes, and not simply to make turning the tables more efficient. But I give them points for valiantly shouting out descriptions over the din.

An enoteca too

In addition to the usual roster of appetizers and main courses, Dolce has a one-page enoteca menu, more tapas than first courses, that capitalize on the small-plates craze. They’re actually not all that small and include some of the restaurant’s best starters, such as grilled Mediterranean cuttlefish, fresh ricotta laced with anise seeds or a simple plate of prosciutto di San Daniele. Bland yellow slabs of polenta are topped bruschetta-style with a wild mushroom sauce. The effect is similar to unsalted Tuscan bread with prosciutto: It brings out the flavor of the mushroom sauce even more. If you hanker for potato gnocchi, these are comforting little pillows sauced in a fragrant green pesto. Sometimes there’s even delicious tripe cooked with tomato and Parmigiano.

The chef is Mirko Paderno, a 27-year-old who has worked his way through L.A.’s roster of Italian restaurants (Primi, Valentino, Drago, Ago, Celestino) without settling anywhere for long. His last post was Trio in San Marino. He’s cooking some of those dishes here, including his signature timbale of Parmigiano with romaine salad and anchovy dressing or cannelloni with house-made ricotta and sauteed escarole.

But whatever you order, a server is right there with a hugely ostentatious pepper grinder, the better to torture you by inquiring if you’d like some black pepper -- before you’ve had a chance to taste the dish. The light, golden mixed fry of calamari and shrimp with zucchini certainly doesn’t need it. Nor does the rustic Tuscan tomato and bread soup.

Paderno hasn’t given in to the common impulse to dumb things down. His dishes are for the most part authentic, and the menu even takes some chances, especially with the antipasti and first courses. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why the pasta falls so flat. The best is the spaghetti alla chitarra with marinara sauce and assorted seafood and spark of hot red chile pepper. Amatriciana sauce, though, is lackluster, and fusilli with lobster is workmanlike at best. Saffron risotto with braised veal on top is satisfying, each grain of rice distinct, and hearty enough to make a meal.

Among the main courses, grilled prime rib, beef filet and salmon are all well-prepared, but they don’t really bring more than familiarity to the table. Grilled branzino or striped bass is simple and light, but like most branzino served in this country, its taste has gone missing. Pan-roasted swordfish, on the other hand, is cut thick enough to stay moist, and has more flavor than most West Coast swordfish.

Galletto alla diavola is a wonderful surprise. Listed as a roasted, boneless baby chicken, the waiter worriedly informs me the menu is wrong: It’s not boneless at all. All the better -- almost everything has more flavor cooked on the bone. Remember poussin? This is something like that, marinated and grilled with olive oil and some red pepper, maybe a squirt of lemon. It comes to the table hot and crisp, with a phalanx of roasted potatoes. Another good bet is the roasted rack of veal. The chops are small, tender and delicious, and I couldn’t stay away from the chicory timbale that came with it.

The partners convinced former Valentino sommelier Alessandro Sbrendola to trade in his tux and his tastevin for something more casual. The once resplendent sommelier, now in a colored, button-down shirt with his sommelier’s corkscrew clipped to his belt, gamely tries to sell wine to a crowd more obsessed with cocktails. To that end, he’s installed a 2,000-bottle, glassed-in cellar with a library ladder for reaching bottles at the very top of the stack. Every time Sbrendola goes up, you hold your breath. He’s not a natural climber.

Chianti for a club crowd

But he does seem to be making headway with this crowd. He’s beefed up the selections of wine by the glass to encourage people to try unfamiliar wines, but he’s also moving more serious bottles on the 44-page wine list, which includes maps of viticultural areas. One night I watched him pour a mid-level Barolo for a young table. He had the complete attention of its diners as he made his sommelier moves, preparing the glasses by swirling them with a splash of wine, and then filling each to the exact same level in quick succession. The phrase on the wine list is “un po’ di vino cambia tutto,” a little wine changes everything. Amen. He could, however, use a better selection of Chianti Classico and other more affordable red wines from Italy, since this is what goes with most of the food.

Desserts seem almost an afterthought. Tiramisu is made with panettone, the sweet Christmas and Easter bread, but doesn’t taste much different because of it. There’s a plain ricotta pudding and various sorbets and gelati but nothing seductive enough to hold its own against a good espresso.

Despite the waiters’ sometimes annoying Italian shtick, the cranked-up noise level and the scripted scene, against all odds, Dolce can be a lot of fun. It’s not your mom-and-pop, red-sauce Italian. It’s not Valentino either. It’s Dolce, and it’s a whole new genre -- Italian food in a club setting.

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Dolce

Rating: **

Location: 8284 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; (323) 852-7174.

Ambience: L.A.’s first hip Italian spot is thronged with the young and briefly famous, all tucked into capacious black leather booths. A wild bar scene where the babes are often five deep.

Service: Overwrought, sporadically attentive.

Price: Antipasti and salads, $6 to $12; pasta and risotto, $12 to $19; main courses, $19 to $29; desserts, $7.

Best dishes: Fried calamari and shrimp, Tuscan tomato and bread soup, pesto gnocchi, grilled cuttlefish, spaghetti with assorted seafood, saffron risotto with braised veal, galletto alla Diavola, pan-roasted swordfish steak, roasted rack of veal, panettone tiramisu in espresso sauce, ricotta cheese custard.

Wine list: A 55-page list compiled by sommelier Alessandro Sbrendola. Of course, Italian wines star. Corkage, $35.

Best table: A corner booth.

Special features: A large patio that functions as the smoking section.

Details: Open daily, 6 p.m. to midnight. Full bar. Valet parking, $3.50.

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.