Brotherhood, Drago style

Posto, Piero Selvaggio’s rustic Sherman Oaks Italian restaurant, is no more. With only small tweaks to the decor, the space is now home to Panzanella, a new restaurant from three of the four Drago brothers. (Those would be Giacomino, Tanino and Calogero. The oldest, Celestino, was too busy with his Santa Monica flagship Drago and the new Enoteca Drago in Beverly Hills.)

Any Drago venture brings out a legion of die-hard fans. Enoteca Drago, for example, has been a smash hit from Day One. And at least on one Saturday night, Panzanella was drawing a crowd the old Posto hadn’t seen in a very long time.

The private dining rooms were bursting with guests. A small mob surrounded the nonplused hostess, hoping for a table, and those already seated were doing some considerable table-hopping. Calogero, the compact brother who runs the front of the house, was making the rounds of the tables, sug- gesting dishes, sending out an extra taste of something Giacomino and the new chef from Venice had whipped up in the kitchen.

To start, a waiter sets down delicious olive tapenade and warm, freshly baked focaccia topped with cherry tomatoes and onions. There are generous platters of cold cuts and a number of salads -- this is California, after all -- including the Tuscan bread salad that gives Panzanella its name. Two versions, in fact: one with bread, the other with spelt, a nutty grain that’s a staple in Tuscany. Both are made with plum tomatoes, basil, red onion and fruity olive oil poured on with a heavy hand.

San Marzano or cherry tomatoes appear again and again in the pastas, from cappellini checca or a special linguine with fresh crab to spaghetti Natale, “a tribute to Papa Drago,” made with baby San Marzano tomatoes and basil.

The menu is so heavily weighted toward antipasti and primi that the handful of secondi listed on the last page almost seem like an afterthought. For the main courses, the kitchen rounds up the usual suspects -- osso buco, grilled veal or lamb chops and chicken alla cacciatora, hunter’s style -- along with specials our waiter described with real poetry, though we were disappointed to find out that what we heard as “halibut cooked in heaven” was merely cooked in the oven.

Sad to say, hardly anybody was ordering octopus salad or the few other challenging dishes on the menu, like veal tongue salad, so I suspect the kitchen ends up playing it safe with more familiar Italian dishes.

The Drago restaurants have always attracted more people in love with the Italian lifestyle and the brothers’ southern Italian exuberance than serious food people.

After all, Celestino Drago’s most heartfelt project, the Sicilian restaurant Arancino, never found an audience. But the Drago brothers have certainly mastered the art of making everyone feel welcome. I can think of a number of restaurateurs who should take lessons.

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Panzanella

Where: 14928 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks

When: Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; dinner 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 5:30 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Antipasti, $9.25 to $11; soups and salads, $5 to $10.50; pasta and risotto, $9.50 to $15.50; main dishes, $16.50 to $26.

Info: (818) 784-4400