A $15 Sunday supper solution

OTHER than to a Chinese restaurant, where do you go on a Sunday night for dinner with the family or your posse of friends?

Starched linens and starched waiters are not part of the equation. After, you just want to go home and kick back, watch a DVD or crack that first page of Elizabeth Kostova’s bestseller, “The Historian.” Me, I’m planning to soak away my garden-induced aches in a bubble bath, with the vampire novel propped on the edge of the tub.

But first, dinner.

Dominick’s, the updated red-sauce Italian on Beverly Boulevard, just west of San Vicente Boulevard, has just initiated a splendid Sunday dinner plan. It’s a prix fixe menu -- three courses served family-style -- for $15 per person, which is quite the deal for a restaurant of this caliber.

Last Sunday we couldn’t find a soul in the cozy dining room. Strange, I thought. But not to worry. Everybody was outside, in the brick-walled patio dotted with trees and strung with cheery piazza lights. Pots of flowers were bolted to the walls and every table had its diners, mostly many, making merry.

The beauty of the Sunday night supper is that not everyone at the table has to order the family-style menu. Two of us did; two of us didn’t. That way we had more plates for sharing.

The family meal that night (and it changes every week) began with a mixed green salad served from a wooden-esque bowl. The greens were perky, the dressing nicely poised.

That was followed by the main course: in this case braciole, which needs a New Yorker to pronounce it with the proper relish. It’s an old-fashioned dish, the kind your Italian American grandmother would make if you were lucky enough to have one -- basically, thin slices of beef rolled up with cheese to form little bundles of goodness, the whole slathered in a loose tomato sauce redolent of garlic and oregano and served with sauteed zucchini and squash.

Hey, you might wonder, where has this been all my life? It’s as comforting as meat loaf but considerably lighter.

Dessert was an ice cream sundae made with Dominick’s own house-made gelato and served in a footed glass. Though it’s a bit thin on the chocolate sauce (the remedy is to ask for more, of course), what could be more summery?

For those not into the fixed menu, there’s always Italian wedding soup dotted with dainty meatballs, Dominick’s delicious grilled artichoke, whitefish piccata or spaghetti and meatballs, among other choices on the a la carte menu.

The “Dago red” (that’s their name, not mine) the restaurant is pouring for $10 a bottle was just fine. But, if you want to drink up, of course, the list offers a number of more serious wines.

That balmy evening, everybody seemed to linger, ordering up more wine, sipping espresso, table-hopping. In the end, Sunday night at Dominick’s felt like a wildly successful party after somebody or other’s art opening or performance.

What fun.

So what’s for dinner this Sunday night? Dominick’s will serve baked clams, manicotti and assorted Italian ices.

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Dominick’s

Where: 8715 Beverly Blvd., West Hollywood

When: Open 6 p.m. to 12:45 a.m. daily. Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Sunday night three-course family-style dinner, $15 per person. Regular menu: Appetizers, $7 to $15; main courses, $13 to $25; desserts, $5 to $6.

Info: (310) 652-2335