A casual Italian translation

No matter how many Italian restaurants fling open their doors on or near San Vicente Boulevard, Brentwood gives them an infatuated welcome. With Vincenti, Toscana, Latini Osteria and Amici Brentwood all within shouting distance, you’d think the neighborhood would have its fill of zuppa, linguine and fettuccine or bistecca alla fiorentina. Think again. Because here comes Agostino Sciandri with yet another Italian, Sor Tino Ristorante, in the old Rosti space on South Barrington.

Sciandri is no stranger to the upscale ‘hood. He was chef and partner in Toscana and, as an offshoot of that, launched the Rosti chain of rosticcerias with his Toscana partners. He severed those ties several years ago -- about the time he opened Ago in West Hollywood with actor Robert DeNiro as an investor.

He did his best cooking years ago, though, at Il Giardino, the Beverly Hills restaurant that introduced L.A. to northern Italian cooking back in the ‘80s. His food there had a purity and simplicity that was truly Tuscan. But over the years, the Tuscan native developed more of a tried-and-true L.A.-Italian style that’s been a runaway popular success, especially with a doting and extremely well-heeled Hollywood clientele.

Sor Tino is something of an experiment for Sciandri. The prices are lower than they are at Ago. It’s meant to be more of a neighborhood hangout than a date-night, special-occasion restaurant. Open from 11:30 a.m. until the last of the Italophiles wanders home, usually at around 10 p.m., Sor Tino is a magnet for anyone seeking a cappuccino or a glass of Chianti, a pizza Margherita or a plate of pasta. Customers come in twos. They come in sixes, though only the sixes can get a reservation. For parties of five or less, it’s first-come, first served.

The former rosticceria has been given a deft face-lift by architect Osvaldo Maiozzi, who also designed Vincenti, Angelini Osteria and La Terza. The open kitchen with wood-burning pizza oven, walls sponged a suitably Italianate ochre and golden, swirled glass light fixtures give Sor Tino a chic, urban look. But the biggest draw is the expansive outdoor terrace with heat lamps for the cooler evenings.

Sciandri’s restaurants are wildly popular, high-energy environments plugged into a suburban lifestyle. Type A personalities can be in-out in less than an hour, the entire family in tow. Singles can meet after work to hash over life strategies. Girlfriends can pick at a salad of seared ahi tuna and dish. And smoke on the patio.

And the food? Well, it’s almost beside the point: all-too-familiar L.A. Italian. Ostensibly Tuscan, it features a few authentic Florentine dishes mixed in with easy eating favorites like beef carpaccio, fried calamari and veal scaloppine. The pastas have the sameness of tavola calda fare you might find at establishments near the railroad station in major Italian cities that specialize in the cheap and filling. None of it has any particular passion or conviction. It’s OK. But it’s certainly not the food that spurs aficionados to go back to Italy every chance they get.

Service with a snap

An always-hungry friend and dining companion summed up dinner at Sor Tino one night, saying absolutely nothing was memorable. You won’t eat badly. You won’t come away raving about the food either.

So be it.

Go to Sor Tino and bask in snappy service and Italian waiter shtick. Drink as much mineral water as you can hold; you can be sure the minute you take a sip, someone is there to refill your glass to the top. (They get you with the water hustle before you’ve even sat down, asking if you want flat or sparkling while you’re distracted and don’t remember there’s always a third option: regular water. Or none. In one fell swoop, the restaurant has already added $5 or $10.)

And dip into the menu, lightly, paying attention to the specials written up on a blackboard so large you could practically read it from the beach.

None of the pizzas will make you think you’re in Italy, but they’re perfectly acceptable, thin-crusted and smoking hot. The pizza Margherita -- tomatoes, mozzarella and basil leaf -- could use better tomatoes, but it’s a credible version of the Naples specialty. Pizza Romana dresses up the basic tomato and cheese topping with artichokes and olives. Pizza funghi, with mushrooms, though, is awfully bland, and the porcini mushrooms are somehow slimy.

Fried artichokes and calamari makes a good dish to share, a generous portion of quartered baby artichokes and calamari rings in a light golden batter with a spicy marinara sauce for dipping. Searching out top-notch ingredients must not seem worth the trouble to Sciandri. Beef carpaccio doesn’t have much flavor, but, as if to make up for that, is covered with lavish shavings of Parmesan. There’s so much cheese in the eggplant lasagna that you can hardly find the eggplant. And while the burrata cheese -- L.A.’s latest passion -- is, as always, pretty good, the sliced tomatoes that come with it are pale and cottony. Why bother?

Instead of a special like seared ahi tuna salad (snore), I’d head straight for the zuppa frantoiana, a rustic soup of beans and Tuscan black cabbage with lots of vegetables. After a little doctoring with salt and a swirl of good olive oil, it’s Italian comfort food at its most basic. I wish there were more dishes like this.

The best pasta I’ve had at Sor Tino was a special: linguine genovese, noodles tossed in a verdant pesto and the traditional potato and green beans. Wide ribbon noodles in a long-simmered wild boar ragu stained with tomato is pretty good as well. The fresh noodles are delicious, too, with a tomato-accented lamb ragu one night. But ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a saffron sauce is heavy handed. And the risotto is oddly unappetizing, swollen grains of rice laced with more of those slippery porcini mushrooms, which are a pale substitute for the glorious fresh funghi.

The kitchen does a good job with whole sea bass, either baked with sliced tomatoes, potatoes and onions, or even better, with only a squeeze of lemon and a thread of limpid olive oil. And then they’ll come up with a dish like the Santa Barbara shrimp we ordered one night. Pitiful. The shrimp are tired and overcooked, more like cardboard than anything that was pulled, recently, from the sea. How is that possible?

Happy with the basics

Sciandri must be very shrewd. That, or very cynical, because he’s content with food that doesn’t seduce with its bright, pure flavors -- food that’s merely good enough. I know he knows the difference. Most people, though, lubricated with wine, or leaning back on their chairs in the garden, reveling in a cigarette, don’t seem to notice. They’re happy enough with baby lamb chops from the wood-burning oven or the typical rib-eye steak. Nothing to get excited about, but not bad either.

The wine list is a mix of Italian and California bottles from well-known labels, most notable for the bizarre predilection to not list vintages for the white wines. Oh, and it includes a handful of certified organic wines.

Desserts are fairly priced at $6, or so you would think, until you taste the floury torta della nonna or the insipid cannoli. Spongecake layered with strawberries makes a better showing than the strawberry tart topped with giant red berries slathered in gelee. Not to worry. They have tiramisu sweet enough to satisfy the most demanding sweet tooth.

For a certain Brentwood crowd, Sor Tino represents la dolce vita. Mille grazie, but I’ll keep looking for something with a little more character and soul.

*

Sor Tino Ristorante

Rating: *

Location: 908 S. Barrington Ave., Brentwood (at San Vicente Boulevard); (310) 442-8466; fax (310) 820-8841

Ambience: Italian trattoria in the former Rosti space features an open kitchen with pizza oven, sponged ochre walls and a patio in front. A magnet for Brentwood Italophiles, it’s lively and open all day from 11:30 a.m.

Service: Snappy and, of course, Italian

Price: Antipasti and salads, $6 to $14; pizza, $10 to $13; pasta and risotto, $11 to $15; meat and fish, $17 to $24; desserts, $6

Best dishes: Fried artichokes and calamari, classic beef carpaccio, pizza romana, zuppa frantoiana, fettuccine with veal and chanterelles, pappardelle with wild boar ragu, sea bass with lemon, free-range chicken

Wine list: A less than exciting mix of California and Italian wines from well-known labels, plus a handful of organic wines. Corkage, $8.

Best table: The corner front table

Details: Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Wine and beer. Valet parking, $4.50.

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.