Issay Food: Sumptuous, Spontaneous and Slightly Over the Top

East Coasters love to rhapsodize about their favorite neighborhood Italian restaurants back home--always a tiny, intimate cafe where the waiters all know you, red wine runs freely and you come out with your clothes smelling of roasted garlic. By comparison, Southern California’s Italian restaurants are less colorful. They tend to be subdued, even genteel.

Issay is a notable exception. This Newport Beach restaurant is the sort of trattoria you might find in the Bronx, Providence or Boston. That is, except for one unmistakably Californian touch: The owner is a Japanese woman.

Michiko Soffer acquired the property almost six years back, and at first, opening an Italian restaurant didn’t even occur to her. Her original concept was Pacific Rim cuisine, revolving around a grill and sushi bar. (The name Issay, in fact, is a quirkish spelling of issei, the Japanese word for “first generation.”) But things change, and Soffer’s sushi man took a walk early on, leaving her without a chef.

It was actually pure coincidence that Paulo Pestarino came looking for a job around the same time. Pestarino, who hails from the Piemonte region of Italy, was already well known in Orange County, having cooked at Luciana’s in Dana Point.

I’d describe his food here as sumptuous, spontaneous and slightly over the top. The spontaneity means that you don’t have to be limited by Issay’s menu: Many of the regular customers simply let Pestarino cook them whatever he feels like. And when I say “sumptuous,” I mean you can count on being served more food than you can handle. Come hungry. Come very hungry.

By the way, Issay’s building has an interesting history. It’s a Cape Cod-style shack that once served as a dance hall. Originally it was down on the beach, but it was moved to this location, piece by piece, in 1935.

You’ll have to like low lights, a low ceiling and a high noise level to love it, though. Diners sit elbow to elbow in the narrow dining room, at wooden tables draped with flower-print cloths. Still, they do get to bathe continually in rich aromas from the open kitchen.

Even a first-time customer is bound to be won over by Pestarino’s bruschetta, one of O.C.’s most engaging starters. It’s amazing how good grilled bread, chopped tomatoes, parsley, salt and olive oil can taste in the hands of a chef who has a sense of proportion.

If you want a more substantial appetizer, try carpaccio di salmone. It’s a plate completely covered by thin slices of salmon (cured on the premises), lightly glazed with a subtle mustard sauce and sprinkled with capers.

A mainstay here is pasta, cooked al dente and served with toppings that range from the basic to the boisterous. One day the specials board listed a wonderful pappardelle ai porcini: broad noodles in a delicate sauce made from fresh porcini mushrooms and the juices from a veal roast.

For his pungent penne puttanesca, Pestarino mixes the chewy tubular pasta with Kalamata olives, capers, oregano and garlic, adding anchovies only upon request.

One item often on the specials menu is spaghetti scolio, a mixed seafood pasta featuring sea bass, swordfish, clams and shrimp in a rich, grainy marinara sauce.

A few dishes are often available, though they might not appear on either the menu or the specials board. Pestarino’s first-rate vitello tonnato, for instance; you’ll have to ask for it. This is slices of perfectly roasted veal topped with a smooth, creamy tuna sauce, and it may sound odd, but it’s probably my favorite appetizer in all of Italy.

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You never know what to expect from the specials board. One evening there was quail risotto for two--a brace of grilled birds nested on Arborio rice powerfully flavored with saffron. Another there was sea bass balsamico, blanketed in a thick brown sauce aggressively flavored with balsamic vinegar. The fish itself was so good, though, that I’d really have preferred it plain, perhaps brushed with olive oil and a little rosemary.

Among the main dishes listed on the menu are misto di pesce piccata, pollo Portofino and an Asian-tinged barbecued shrimp, all of which come off, in this context, less compelling than the chef’s more creative efforts.

The misto is mixed shellfish in a lemony white wine sauce; the barbecued shrimp come grilled in a garlic-infused soy reduction. Pollo Portofino--skinless breast of chicken in a demiglaze, with artichoke hearts and red bell peppers--is really more Continental than Italian, and I don’t find the combination of flavors works as well as it might.

Soffer is a real fancier of fine wines. The windowsills are lined with empty bottles of Petrus, Margaux, Williams and Selyem Pinot Noir and several Super-Tuscans, all said to have been consumed on the premises. You won’t find such treasures on Issay’s list, but you will find a wide selection of good wines at affordable prices, such as Chardonnays by Gary Farrell and Stonestreet and a fine St. Francis Merlot, all $28.

The one dessert at Issay is a credible tiramisu, dense and creamy and easily enough for two. Incidentally, Issay stops serving at 10 p.m., but there are always people here until well past 11. Issay’s customers fairly linger over their wine, dessert and espresso, just the way people do in those East Coast cities.

Issay is expensive. Appetizers are $8.50 to $9.95. Pastas are $10.95 to $17.95. Main dishes are $13.95 to $18.95.

* ISSAY

* 485 Old Newport Blvd., Newport Beach.

* (714) 722-2992.

* Dinner 5:30-10 p.m. daily.

* American Express, Diner’s Club, MasterCard and Visa.