‘That gelato place’

Italian has long been the most popular ethnic restaurant category in this country, and it shows no signs of slowing down. So the challenge for any new Italian restaurant is more to create a niche than to fill it. Le Golosita, an ambitious project run by Giuliano Berto, who also has Zeffirino at the Venetian, attempts to do just that. Can it endure? Read on.

Le Golosita, which roughly translated from the Italian refers to “delicacies,” is an all-purpose food emporium featuring a full-service deli; a pastry counter selling cookies, fancy pastries and sundries; and, without a doubt, the Valley’s best gelato. Le Golosita’s smack in the middle of a giant mall called Park Place, already home to a dozen or so other restaurants. The décor is elaborate—marble floors, sepia-toned walls, lots of wrought iron and a nice outdoor patio. Calling it the crown jewel of this mall wouldn’t be a stretch. Luxury doesn’t come cheap.

But Berto justifies his price point, set slightly higher than those in the typical Italian joint for locals, by citing the quality of his products. “Italian cooking is simple,” he says, “so the quality of products is the most important factor.” No disagreement here.

You’ll get top-notch veal, tomatoes, cheese and produce here, as you would in a fine-dining Italian restaurant on the Strip. And though you’ll pay a few dollars more for your dishes than you will at the Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill, it’s still far less expensive to eat here than in an upscale casino’s Italian restaurant.

Still, the menu here is less adventurous than it might be. When Zeffirino opened, it had interesting dishes from medieval Genoa, pastas studded with dried fruits and nuts—and no one ordered them. The fact is, even our most sophisticated Italian restaurants are required to Americanize their menus. So yes, the menu here reads a little like a greatest-hits one, if you insist. But hey, that’s what it takes to draw a crowd, I guess.

The lunch menu doesn’t offer specials, per se, but prices are set at around $3 or $4 lower per dish than at dinner, so I recommend it for an initial visit.

You might choose a lovely minestrone alla Genovese that adds a pinch of pesto, the pungent basil sauce native to that city, to an already tasty pasta and vegetable soup. The salad called “Le Golosita” is another winner, a huge plate of grilled shrimp wrapped in prosciutto, olives, watercress and radicchio, served with a nicely tart vinaigrette dressing.

I wasn’t especially impressed with my so-called “Gourmet Pizza,” however. The server insisted it was a thin-crust pizza, but our pie, cooked in a gas oven, was rather doughy, and with Brooklyn pizza house Grimaldi’s, which uses a coal oven, across the street, I see no reason to come here for pizza.

Especially when there are delicious panini to be had. Le Golosita serves about the best veal parmigiana sandwich I’ve had around here. The menu advertises it as classic ciabatta bread panini, but mine was served on a garden-variety Italian loaf, and the slipper-shaped ciabatta was nowhere in sight. Still, it hardly mattered. The veal was beautifully pounded, the cheeses melty and delicious and the marinara sauce perfectly proportioned. There are also toasted sandwiches like a nice speck (Italian ham), fontina cheese and eggplant, a feast for $7.95.

Come for dinner, and you may want to try one of the tempting house pastas. Spaghetti con polpette is traditional spaghetti and meatballs, the catch being that the meatballs are tiny, flavorful and addictive.

One of the more interesting choices is pappardelle ai frutti di mare, a wide, flat pasta laced with clams, mussels, shrimp, scallops and calamari. There are also properly stirred risottos, made with Arborio rice. The best one I tasted here is not on the regular menu, a red-wine risotto with crumbled Italian sausage.

Secondi, or main courses, are meat, poultry or fish. Saltimbocca alla Romana is a nice idea, veal scaloppini topped with sage and pancetta, sautéed in a white-wine sauce. If you crave fish, lemon sole is one possibility, but spada al salmoriglio, swordfish grilled with extra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, oregano and garlic, is a better choice, although I find it odd that there is no mention of salt, which is what “salmoriglio” refers to.

I hope you save room for dessert. That gelato case that catches your eye on the way to your table is worth the detour here, but the bad news is that you are going to pay a price of $8 if you order the gelato in the dining room. But what ice cream this is, pumped with compressed air in the true Italian style, to produce a dense, creamy product.

Flavors such as fig, hazelnut, stracciatella (Italian for chocolate chip) and amarena, or cherries and cream, are all standouts. The pastry counter, for the record, is stocked with a number of wondrous things: a dome-shaped hazelnut mousse, rich, canoe-shaped cannoli and great Italian cookies sold by the pound. Delicacies, indeed.

Le Golosita

9500 S. Eastern Ave. 216-4088.

Suggested dishes: minestrone alla Genovese, $4.50; veal parmigiana panino, $9.95; spada al salmoriglio, $17.95; gelati, $8.

Photograph by Iris Dumuk