accessAtlanta

AMERICANS POSSESS a very clear notion of what they perceive to be Italian, especially when it comes to food.

But like Chinese food in the '50s and '60s, Italian has taken on a flavor all its own in the States, with a decidedly American accent and interpretation. Gooey cheese and red sauce, meatballs, lasagna — these foods have become as much a part of an American meal as apple pie and hamburgers. On this side of the Atlantic, we embrace the homespun simplicity of a carb load with gravy and meatballs like a warm red-, white- and green-striped blanket.

Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
Trout is something special, encrusted with walnuts and accompanied by fingerling potatoes and spinach in a lemon and caper sauce.
Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
Insalata Caprese — served with fresh, juicy tomatoes — is a good way to go at di Paolo in Alpharetta.
Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
After settling into the main dining room and a hearty main course, try the lemon souffle with vanilla gelato.
Elissa Eubanks/Staff (ENLARGE)
MOST POPULAR STORIES Police: Jeffrey Donovan arrested, suspected of DUI Report: Abdul's return to 'American Idol' doubtful Beastie Boy Adam Yauch has 'very treatable' cancer Fallon's '7th Floor West' is a silly, soapy treat Chris Brown apologizes for Rihanna beating
EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR
Find the restaurant

So when chefs like Lidia Bastianich and Mario Batali changed our melted cheese-encrusted minds by introducing us to "real" Italian, we weren't sure what to make of it. Perhaps Italian wasn't exactly what we had been eating all these years ... perhaps Italian is a little bit more.

That's probably why restaurants such as di Paolo, voted No. 1 Italian in the area by Zagat for the last three years, teeter between trying to satisfy our primitive cravings for a messy plate of spaghetti and enlightening us with the real thing. Most of this restaurant's dishes fall somewhere in between, which is a sure formula for its 11-year spin with popularity.

I've never been when the dining room isn't full; I've never had a truly memorable meal here, either. But I've had good meals, and I'd rather eat them here than at a Maggiano's or Carrabba's. As chains of every make eat up our gastronomic landscape, I'm glad we've managed to save room for places like di Paolo.

Does this restaurant overreach? Sure. Truffle-scented goat cheese ravioli, lamb scaloppine with oven-roasted fingerling potatoes and pine nut and mint gremolata are the proof of that pudding. Veal parmigiana (the scaloppine of which was a little like eating shoe leather) is served over a salad of arugula, for goodness sake.

But when di Paolo isn't peddling the panna cotta too hard it strikes just the right note, creating favorite neighborhood dishes for a neighborhood crowd that makes it a favorite — never mind that there's really no neighborhood to a strip mall in Alpharetta.

Insalata Caprese has become one of those second-generation Italian dishes, beyond ravioli and veal parm, that most people recognize and like. Here, it's served with fresh, juicy tomatoes (on one evening they were summer heirlooms) — the salad's most important ingredient. House-made mozzarella is a soft, billowy bed for the tomatoes, with sprigs of fresh basil. Italians rarely, if ever, eat this salad with balsamic vinegar, and like them I could do without the balsamic reduction that's drizzled prettily all over the plate.

The aroma in the parking lot from the wood-burning oven is a harbinger of wood-fired pizzas, a big part of di Paolo's appeal. The crusts here are thin and crisp, reminiscent of the pizelli of Naples, with no puffiness at all. The rustic flavor pairs nicely with chicken and artichokes, pancetta and roasted red peppers and grano padano cheese — but in the end the toppings overpower it.

Lasagna alla Bolognese came with no pasta, just a thick layer of bechamel and cheese. It seemed lonely and bereft. Fat pillows of ravioli con capra win, stuffed with the aforementioned truffle-scented goat cheese and surrounded with a saute of portobello mushrooms (who said this mushroom was Italian?) and tomatoes.

Trout gets royal treatment, encrusted with walnuts and sitting pretty over roasted fingerling potatoes and spinach in a just-this-side-of-tart lemon and caper sauce.

Desserts are big (as are most of the portions here) and a little weird, with spoon-shaped gaufrette cookies and sage-infused ice cream (the idea of which came and went in the '90s). A frozen lemon souffle, though its texture was curdled, was the best of the lot — a tart, cool refresher to the meal.

So was limoncello, which was fun to sip instead of coffee. The wine list made for good sips, too, filled with fun and sometimes sophisticated Italian wines, from Barolo to Valpolicella Ripasso by the glass.

So yes, there's a bit of a gap between Alpharetta and Abruzze. But di Paolo clearly satisfies a craving we all have for a fix of what lies in between.