Cicada

Stephanie Taupin and Adelmo Zarif moved their West Hollywood establishment downtown into this stunning space in the Oviatt Building after the city's most elegant Italian restaurant, Rex il Ristorante, closed here several years ago. The food is northern Italian in a hushed, upscale Art Deco setting. On weekend nights, there's live music upstairs in the stylish bar, and you can kick up your heels on the small dance floor.

Admittedly, Rex was a hard act to follow. But Taupin and L.A. designer Nicolas Pasquale Valle have livened up the cavernous dining room with a gold-leaf ceiling. Brighter lights highlight the capitals of the soaring pillars with their beautiful original carved-angel motif -- for the City of Angels. Curved, high-sided leather booths fit together in the shape of a cloverleaf for intimacy. The mezzanine is set with tables, backed by Valle's stylized Italian landscape murals in colors that are startlingly bold in this setting. For the bar upstairs, where a pianist still plays, Valle designed demure beige chenille sofas and brown leather club chairs edged in brass studs.

This contemporary Italian menu is far more ambitious than Cicada's old one. Among the first courses is a delicately poached salmon with small, juicy mussels and clams embellished with emerald parsley oil. It's lovely with a glass of Pieropan's single-vineyard Soave Classico. I also recommend the salad of velvety, lightly smoked swordfish and sturgeon enhanced by the slight bitterness of Belgian endive and pink grapefruit segments in a citrus sauce. And if, by chance, soft-shell crabs are offered as a special, order them: They're sauteed in olive oil and as light as the best tempura.

Curiously, there aren't many pasta dishes I want to order. I pass on shrimp ravioli in a curry sauce and hesitate when pondering whole-grain tagliatelle with duck breast, wild mushrooms and crispy leeks because of the white truffle oil, a trendy ingredient that sells dishes on its presence alone. In fact, the tagliatelle is delicious, bearing only a trace of the overpowering oil. I also like the chef's supple goat cheese ravioli, filled with a subtly tangy cheese and sauced only in brown butter, and his pale corn flour gnocchi, cloaked in fontina cheese, cream and butter infused with fresh thyme. His two risotto dishes, however, are as eccentric as they come. I didn't try the frog legs and herb version, but an intriguing-sounding red cabbage, crab and mint risotto tastes too strongly of mint and is so gummy with cheese that it's difficult to find any flavor of crab.

Service is generally quite good, with one amusing quirk. Our Italian waiter repeats everything we order in Italian. Swordfish? Pesce di spada, he announces, giving an Italian lesson at the same time. While our table is deep in conversation, however, he continues pouring mineral water without asking if we would like more. At the end of the evening, we're billed $18 for three bottles of Panna.

Instead of grilled branzino, the Mediterranean fish is baked and napped in a graceful white wine and rosemary sauce. But turbot -- scaloppa di rombo, murmurs the waiter -- is too salty. Not to worry, there's enough veal chop for at least two of us. Three fingers thick, it's cooked to a true medium rare and blanketed in melted scamorza cheese, which gives the veal a deliciously smoky edge. Eat quickly, though, because the cheese turns rubbery as it cools. Breast of guinea fowl is stuffed with fresh black summer truffles that don't have much flavor; even if they did, though, no one would be able to tell because this dish is oversalted, too. Sadly, creamy veal sweetbreads are doused in so much sweet balsamic vinegar that none of us can finish them.

Cicada is one of the handful of L.A. restaurants that offers a cheese plate. With the exception of the requisite selection of big-ticket French Champagnes, the wine list is divided into Italian and California sections, both of which could include more interesting, moderately priced wines.

Come dessert, order the bunet, Piedmont's homey chocolate flan. Black as sin, it bears the unmistakable taste of crumbled amaretti and is served with a swirl of snowy white whipped cream. There's a pleasant semifreddo (frozen dessert) flecked with red and purple berries, but a version with walnuts, almonds and pistachios is the unappetizing color of pâté, with a soggy, half-melted texture. Cicada's version of ricotta cheesecake is excellent, studded with pine nuts and raisins.

Before too long, a faint tinkling sound grows louder as the waiter maneuvers a cart holding every imaginable after-dinner drink closer to your table. There are grappas galore, plus all the amari, or bitter digestivos, and, of course, limoncello, the sweet, lemon-flavored liqueur that is a specialty on the Amalfi coast. A small glass of any of these brings a meal at Cicada to a lovely finale.