Serving Up a New Mix of Eclectic Italian Food

“I’m the owner and I’m very nervous,” Fabio Conti confessed to a customer in Fix, his sparsely populated new Hollywood restaurant and bar, three days after opening.

He shouldn’t be. Fix looks inviting with its awning-striped banquettes and tall wood-framed mirrors. And Conti is, after all, no newcomer to the business. He’s already got three Fabiolus cafes under his belt, including one just next door on Sunset.

Since the cafes are all Italian, Fix’s new menu offers something a little different--in a word: eclectic. The chef, however, is Italian, and whatever he cooks is filtered through that sensibility.

A gentrified taco--flour tortillas rolled around a filling of sauteed eggplant, sweet peppers and fontina--comes with a gingery frisee salad. More impressively, even when the chef goes somewhat Asian, he pulls it off, as in the excellent pork tenderloin with red pearl onions lightly sauced in meat juices and soy.

Of course, the menu lists a few dishes from the old country, too, like penne arrabiata sauced with sweet oven-dried tomatoes or a terrific bruschetta of toasted olive bread topped with marinated shrimp and tomatoes.

And most everything can be ordered in half- or full-portions, a boon for late-night noshers.

* Fix, 6266 1/2 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, (213) 465-5349. Open Monday to Friday for lunch; Monday to Saturday for dinner. Major credit cards accepted. Parking in lot in back. Appetizers $4-$7; entrees $7-$13.50.