Piccola Italia evolves without forgetting

When I first heard that Piccola Italia was getting a complete makeover, I cringed at the thought. Over the years, I've seen too many established restaurants try to parlay their success into something bigger and better, only to wind up losing what made them successful.

What's more, I have a personal fondness for Piccola Italia. Its quaint, dark dining room with its cozy nooks and crannies has been as close to a regular haunt as the nomadic dining habits of a restaurant critic would allow. And the food -- an unpretentious offering prepared by Sicilian native Frank Amato, the restaurant's owner, pasta sauce maker and pizza baker extraordinaire -- has never let me down.

I needn't have worried.

The dining room has been opened up and thoroughly transformed with rag-rolled walls, red and gold glass bead chandeliers, and spiffy new button-back banquettes. Yet the space still exudes a warm, intimate glow.

Most important, the food hasn't suffered a bit. In fact, the menu has grown substantially to include chicken and veal entrees and a dramatically expanded seafood offering. While this is just the sort of culinary ambition that has proved the undoing of many restaurants of similarly modest origin, there's no evidence that Piccola Italia's kitchen has bitten off more than it can chew.

Certainly, salmon alla puttanesca, one of the new seafood offerings is a keeper. I don't recall ever coming across this dish before, but the pairing of richly flavorful salmon and an intense tomato sauce riddled with whole black olives turns out to be such a natural one as to seem inevitable. (Shrimp fettuccine Alfredo, salmon in pink sauce and frutti di mare in marinara sauce are other seafood additions.)

Veal cutlet francese, another new offering, comes close to the mark with a balanced lemon-white wine sauce and textbook egg wash crust. Only the fact that the cutlets are slightly too thick, and consequently chewy, keeps the dish from being an unqualified success. In this case, I'd opt for the version made with chicken.

For all their pizzazz, though, new items account for less than a third of the offerings. And, I have to admit, whenever I return, it will almost always be for the old favorites.

It's hard to imagine a meal at Piccola Italia that doesn't begin with its excellent bruschetta, which comes with a bonus of a small chopped salad of grilled eggplant and tomato. Or fried calamari so good they don't need the delicious accompanying tomato sauce dip.

Just as rewarding are Amato's honest renderings of classic Italian and Italian-American pasta dishes and entrees. Meat lasagna is a gooey, plate-eclipsing slab of well-seasoned ground beef, cheese, sauce and noodles in perfect proportion. The dish has earned an almost cult-like following over the years, as has Amato's textbook rendering of eggplant parmigiana.

Even a simple dish of spaghetti with tomato sauce is distinguished by al dente pasta and a supple sauce glistening with olive oil and redolent of garlic. (The sauce is available a la carte, in case you want to order some to take out and drink in the privacy of your own home.)

While pastas are the backbone of Piccola Italia's reputation, pizzas are its heart and soul. These pies have everything going for them: a consistently thin, crisp-bottomed crust with a slightly thicker, chewy edge; a superb, not-too-sweet sauce; and a wide variety of toppings applied in just the right amount. Calzones and stromboli are first-rate, too.

Even more welcome than the menu additions, in my book, is the vastly expanded wine cellar. The list now runs to some four dozen, with an emphasis on Italian labels.

Piccola Italia's makeover is a resounding success. Turns out it was a smart move, too. The restaurant's new look fits right in with its surroundings in the recently renovated Cameron Village. And the updates reflect the personalities of Amato's son John and daughter Natasha, who are increasingly involved in the running of the restaurant. Looks like Frank Amato knew what he was doing, after all.