"Restaurant Review: Michael's on Naples Ristorante"

S-Irene-Virbila's Rating

THE restaurant's name -- Michael's on Naples Ristorante --sounds dubious, like the kind of place you might see showing up on British chef Gordon Ramsay's hit television series "Kitchen Nightmares." In fact, Ramsay did take in hand an Italian restaurant called Peter's on Long Island in one episode I saw (and he spent much of the show trying to get the principles of running a restaurant -- no eating in front of the clients, no spending thousands on an Armani suit when the kitchen badly needs a stove -- through Peter's thick head).

Michael's on Naples may have a similarly stubborn name, but the story is very different. Open since December, this casual, sophisticated Italian is owned by first-time restaurateur Michael Dene -- who lives in Naples, the marina-rich neighborhood in Long Beach. And his namesake restaurant looks more to Italy for inspiration than Italian-American enclaves such as North Beach or Little Italy. The chef, Marco Cavuoto, is from Milan. Manager and sommelier Massimo Aronne is from Liguria. And the menu is classic Italian with bright Southern California notes.

The sleek, contemporary design is quiet and understated compared with the honky-tonk look of the rest of the 2nd Street restaurant row. Inside, would-be diners are crowded at the small granite-topped bar, sipping aperitifs as they wait for a table to open up. Why drive to West Hollywood, I hear one say, when I can walk to Michael's? Why, indeed. The walls are lined with roomy upholstered booths, the better to pile in with family and friends, and wavy glass lighting fixtures from the Italian company Artemide bathe the room in soft light.

That narrow staircase to the left just inside the front door leads to the rooftop terrace outfitted with charcoal-gray sofas pulled up to an outdoor fireplace and, at the front of the space, a rooftop dining area. Here, you catch some of that balmy sea breeze. I swear, at times, when I had dinner up there, I felt I was somewhere on Capri or the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia, Italy.

You'd probably be eating very similar fare at either place. To start, there's a beautiful white and mauve octopus carpaccio that covers the entire plate, with a lovely little salad of fingerling potatoes with olives and radishes in the middle. Beef carpaccio is elegantly presented, too, garnished with pretty green arugula leaves, shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano and a svelte horseradish dressing.

On an unseasonably hot night, bufala mozzarella with fresh and oven-roasted tomatoes sounds appealing. The mozzarella really does taste like bufala, but the tomatoes just aren't flavorful enough to show up on their own, at least this early in the season. If you can't get great tomatoes, don't make the dish.

Cavuoto has a wonderfully light hand with pastas, though, particularly the lasagna capricciosa listed as an antipasto. Baked and served in a white porcelain ramekin, it's simply supple fresh pasta layered with burrata, olive-oil cured tomatoes (a French chef would call it tomato confit) and perfumed with Sicilian oregano. It couldn't be lighter. He plays a similar trick with another war horse, eggplant parmigiana, layering thinly sliced zucchini into the mix, which lightens it up considerably, giving it a bit of a ratatouille lilt.

Vitello tonnato hardly ever makes an appearance on L.A.-area Italian menus so I was happy to hear it mentioned one night as an appetizer. The chef makes an excellent, straightforward version of this summer classic -- chilled thinly sliced roast veal napped with a piquant tuna and mayonnaise sauce. Fried calamari, too, is better than you'd expect, light and crunchy and instead of the usual boring marinara sauce, it's served with a bagn