dining out

Lucca (617) 742-9200 226 Hanover Street (North End), Boston Open Mon–Thurs, 4–11 p.m.; Fri, 4 p.m.–1 a.m.; Sat, 1 p.m.–1 a.m.; and Sun, 1–11 p.m. AE, CB, DC, Di, MC, Vi Full bar Validated parking Sidewalk-level access

This column is a little late getting to Lucca, which replaced Il Bacio. But we did review Bricco in the North End, and will get to Bacco as soon as a new shipment of b’s and c’s arrives at the typesetters’. As it is, we will have to reserve comment on Lucca’s cappuccino. We haven’t had this sort of problem since the Chestnut Hill " z war " a few years ago, which involved one of the first Paparazzi restaurants and a short-lived competitor, Sfuzzi.

Lucca is a town in Tuscany where they make olive oil. But this Lucca is a restaurant influenced by the Italo-posh Mamma Maria, so it serves butter with the oily Tuscan flatbread. This would be ironic if the flatbread weren’t so rich all by itself, or even if the white-bean-pesto spread served with it weren’t so enticing. But you must hold back on the bread and such, because everything that follows is also very good, and you don’t want to have to skip, say, dessert.

We began with the daily soup, which is usually butternut squash ($8), but not the sweet-and-spiced kind you expect. This is peppery and otherwise all squash, with a dab of crème fraîche — so it’s truly appetite-sharpening. So is the spinach salad ($8), dressed lemony with nuggets of purple and golden beets, sticks of cucumber, and a modest garnish of fresh goat cheese. Even the duck-spinach tart ($10.50) is a small pie shell with meat, leeks (more than greens), and goat cheese, which still leaves room for the next course.

The antipasto (price varies; ours was $13) is more filling, but less surprising. The version we tried was two bundles of baby asparagus wrapped in superb prosciutto, accompanied by deep-flavored portobello mushrooms and a rather ordinary tomato served in slices with fresh mozzarella and basil.

With the entrées we couldn’t miss, but perhaps the pick was the grilled Chilean sea bass ($24), a modest chunk of this very buttery fish, grilled and salted nicely, with a foundation of artichoke hearts, potato salad, onions, and fully seasonal cherry tomatoes. I also thought highly of the daily fish: a yellowfin-tuna steak ($26), seared and coated with a tomato-pepper sauce. If you cut a thin slice, it would look like sushi or tuna carpaccio, but the flavor was beefy and thus ideally matched with puréed potatoes and braised endive.

For those who desire actual red meat, the must-have dish is osso buco ($29), a veal shank done to melting in a carrot-spiked gravy, topped with buttery greens and supported by a pile of perfect polenta, spiced up with very fresh and crunchy chopped scallions. Eat the marrow from the veal shank with two bites of the polenta: it’s as delicious as anything " bad for you. " Fettuccine al funghi ($18) is the simplest of the three pasta possibilities: glorious homemade noodles and heaps of mushrooms tame and wild, served with a bit of thyme in the sauce.

The wine list is half Italian, half Californian. A lot of the wines are expensive, but the bottom of the list looks entirely sound and affordable. We wanted red, so the Italian side was canvassed and yielded a 1998 Barbera d’Asti from Chiarlo ($24). It’s a little high in alcohol, but has plenty of dark berry and cherry fruit in the nose.

Desserts are a real strength, in a neighborhood where some restaurants don’t offer dessert at all. The chocolate torte ($7.50) seems to have a few molecules of flour breaking up the chocolate, but you wouldn’t really call it cake. A scoop of rich vanilla gelato cuts the chocolate just right. Panna cotta ($7.50) is the vanilla offering — a wiggly white gelatin sitting on a layer of rich white pudding. The low-fat lure, a poached pear ($7.50), might be the best of all. The pear is good, the thyme-honey sauce is even better, the white-chocolate wafer is the best, and the pear sorbet comes very close. Tiramisu ($7) is impressively neat, a square of layered cream and cake that doesn’t overplay the chocolate-espresso flavoring. Decaf coffee ($2.25) is some of the best served in any Boston restaurant. Tea ($2.75) is served loose in a sieve in a china pot — this is almost perfect.

If you look up from your terrific meal, you see a high-ceilinged room kept rather dark, though light can be found at the tables near the windows. There’s a marble bar back there somewhere, and enough marble floors and glass walls to assure a loud-bar feeling even when the restaurant is nearly empty. The background music wisely hovers around Sade. If they played the Gipsy Kings, like every other restaurant in Boston, you wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think. The walls are ragged Tuscan yellow, but the feel is all big windows and trattoria, despite the luxurious food. Service by a black-clad staff was excellent, except when the osso buco came to the table cold at the center. I thought this would be resolved with a quick zap. But no, it must have gone back into a slow oven, because the dish did not return until everyone else was through eating. Our waitress kindly gave us desserts on the house, but really, the kitchen might learn to address returns promptly.

The food at Lucca is not particularly Tuscan, and not really all that Italian. But it is very good cheffery on Italian themes, and makes for a fine evening.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com