Isabella

It was 9:30 on a miserable, snowy Friday night, and would-be diners still clogged the front of the restaurant, sipping glasses of wine and beer while waiting for a table to open up. Isabella, which opened just last summer, has taken Boston's southwest suburbs by storm, drawing a flood of suburbanites eager to let someone else cook them a good hearty meal.

On weekend nights, the place is packed, and justly so. It's reasonably priced -- dinners range from $10 for a bowl of pasta to $14 for a strip steak with horseradish mashed potatoes. The menu is creative enough to appeal to city diners and safe enough to satisfy their less adventurous friends.

The atmosphere is both informal and stylish, with one wall painted in a mural that depicts the restaurant's namesake, Isabella Stewart Gardner, surrounded by her friends, after the famous John Singer Sargent portrait. It's a little campy, particularly next to the purple-painted brick wall that frames the exposed kitchen at the rear. Entering Isabella, you have a very difficult time imagining the Mug 'n' Muffin that formerly inhabited this space.

Isabella's food is a success, with just a couple of shortcomings that should be easy to fix. Some dishes are remarkably good -- especially in light of the prices. A grilled tortilla ($6.50) was stuffed with roasted duck and goat cheese, and paired with two lively salsas that sent taste buds happily bouncing back and forth among the flavors of tomatillos, cilantro, cucumbers, lemon, garlic, and chilies.

Lobster-and-cod cakes ($6.50) proved another excellent appetizer. While they didn't wow us with chunks of lobster meat, they did have a sweet homey taste and an earthy consistency that was lightened by the crunch of corn kernels. Two large fried cakes came with a pretty salad of mesclun greens and a pool of sweet-red-pepper sauce jazzed up with grainy Dijon mustard.

An order of pan-grilled mussels and calamari ($6.50) brought a big bowl of broth, piled high with mussels and circles of tender squid, strewn with a julienne of zucchini, yellow squash, and carrots. The shellfish was described as having a lemongrass broth, but the dominant flavors the night we tried it seemed to be wine and turmeric -- a little sour and bitter, to my taste.

Salads at Isabella are meal-sized. The house salad tossed with gorgonzola and walnuts ($5.95) might strike a purist as heavy-handed: a huge bowl of red lettuce was tossed with chunks of slightly wintry tomatoes, cucumber, blue cheese, and chopped, untoasted walnuts.

If Isabella's appetizers are large, some of the entrees are downright enormous. The lamb shanks are an incredible value. Two meaty shanks, braised in a rosemary-and-red-wine sauce, accompanied white beans on a bed of black-pepper pappardelle. The pasta was a little rubbery, but for $11.95 the dish was outstanding.

Another star was the pork chop -- actually two succulent rib chops, left on the bone and carved as one. They were served with rosemary-infused meat juices and a memorable sweet-tart green-apple chutney. The chop was lean and tender, seared hard so it stayed juicy inside. The scallion mashed potatoes with it had a good, rich flavor, but the texture was waxy, the way boiled potatoes get when they're over-mashed.

Salmon filet Seattle-style ($11.95) was worth ordering just to savor the aromatic spices with which the filet is rubbed -- star anise, we thought, maybe five-spice powder. The fish was translucent, a deep coral, like the pork chop roasted hard to give it a rich crust without drying out the meat within. A generous filet came in a citrus-Chardonnay broth with steamed mussels and herbs.

Less successful, though, was a swordfish special ($14.95) -- a too-thin slice of swordfish steak, carved unevenly, then over-grilled so that it came out completely crisp on one end and merely dry on the other. Even a garlicky pesto butter couldn't salve the damage wrought by the grill. We thought of sending it back and wished we had; it was a good piece of fish ruined by sloppy preparation.

Isabella's desserts are hefty, and for the most part simple. They all warrant extra spoons. A brownie sundae fed a table of four. And a mango sundae ($4.95) was similarly large: vanilla ice cream with half a grilled banana, mango sauce, shredded coconut, and chopped macadamia nuts. Chocolate terrine -- two thick slices of dense, rich, and barely sweet chocolate ganache -- came in a pool of pistachio crème anglaise, topped with chopped pistachios and whipped cream.

The wine list at Isabella is minimalist -- a Chianti, a couple of Merlots, a couple of Chardonnays, all under $20, with several selections by the glass. A few choice beers are also available.

Service was friendly and unpretentious, although it would help if the dining room staff knew a little more about the menu. Still, they were eager to run back to the kitchen with questions, unfailingly enthusiastic and helpful. It seems the thrill of having a new place to eat has infected Isabella's staff as well as its customers.