I was not a fan of the original, smaller Piattini when it opened on Newbury Street. It did almost nothing right but service and the wine list. It must have improved, for it survived and thrived, and now the second, larger location (in the space that was formerly Grillfish) does almost everything right. Bigger kitchen, desserts made in-house, better chef, better ingredients — and there was never anything wrong with the concept of small plates and a long wine list, led by a good selection of Italian regional bottles and tastes. For even more fun with wine, the restaurant now has very reasonably priced "flights" of an ounce or two of three different wines of a style — and little stands and printed cards to describe the wines and keep the glasses from getting out of order.

It’s a big, echoey space that a young crowd likes for the noise, and spiffing it up with copper tables and a copper-on-limestone bar has not made it quieter. To the extent that I could hear it, the background music was jazz singing. The kitchen is still open — more noise, but also more entertainment to see fire and chefs moving around.

Food begins with a cone of bread; on top are oily, salty slices that are irresistible with the pour of very fruity olive oil, into which a waiter offers to grind pepper. Certainly. Getting down to a softer loaf with big holes and a little crust doesn’t diminish our hunger for that olive oil, pepper or no.

Actual food may go no further than a lot of small plates, divided into hot and cold dishes, with a few specials as well. One such, on a mixed-vegetable soup ($6.95), turned out to be a highlight. The soup looked like squash, had the more herbal and sharp flavors of V-8 juice, and was garnished with a terrific pesto-butter pat melting in the middle.

Crispy calamari ($7.95), which approach the crispest, come in a petite paper bag with a dipping sauce of real Italian marinara. Arancini ($10.95) likewise have the crispest crust yet on these rice balls (two, the size of tennis balls). These are heavily flavored with saffron; they are also somewhat flavored with lobster and peas at the center, but taste mostly of creamy carnaroli, my favorite of the imported short-grain rices for risotto. A bonus is a buttery tomato sauce.

Bruschetta caldo ($11.95) are warm (which is what caldo means in Italian) and feature toasts with some garlic-bean spread, broccoli rabe, and lightly grilled shrimp. I’d suggest this as the entrée for someone doing all small plates.

Salad-wise, my favorite was barbabietola ($8.95), featuring two thick slices of golden beet, two of dark beet, greens done in a balsamic sauce, and some gorgeous but tasteless purple dust. Carpaccio di manzo ($10.95) is really a salad of arugula, with thin-sliced beef, real parmesan, and capers as a garnish.

Piattini does have large plates, which I suppose would be, each one, called a piatto, while a small one would be a piattino. I thought the Celtics got rid of that guy. My choice would be the agnello ($20.95), six chunks of tender lamb on (this is the crucial part) fully cooked white beans with a delicious rosemary effect, despite some undercooked red wine in the sauce. Risotto zafferano ($19.95) is sort of a fresher, larger version of the arancino, with the rice opened up into a buttery risotto. It was not crunchy, but very strong on saffron, and had a lot more seafood, mostly lobster, along with some spinach. In the all-important key of pasta, tagliatelle bolognese ($16.95) are wide, fat ribbons of creamy pasta in a sauce more meaty than tomato.

Looking at those flights of wine, my favorite was the "Vigoroso Rosso" ($10.50), featuring the 2002 Falesco merlot ($11/glass; $42/bottle), a very decent soft red from as far south as Lazio; the 2002 Los Vascos cabernet sauvignon ($7.50/$38) from Chile; and the 2002 d’Arenberg Shiraz "Footbolt" ($11/$36), which was very good drinking. The lighter "Vibrante Rosso" flight ($10.50) would probably have shown better with a little chill on the wines, especially the 2001 Zenata Valpolicella ($8/$29). This was initially hot and sharp, although it mellowed with some time in the glass. The best of the group was the 2003 Valle Reale Montepulciano d’Abruzzo ($9/$38), which had real structure to go with the fruit. The 2003 Baroncini Chianti Classico ($7/$26) was typical of its type, no more.

Our white flight, the "Festivo Bianco" ($9.50), was stolen by a French wine, the 2003 Sancerre by Guy Saget ($10/$40). If you like the intensity of a good French Sancerre, you may want a bottle of this. The Maritime 2003 pinot grigio ($7/$26) was typical pinot grigio. The Sokol Blosser "Evolution" ($10/$40), on the other hand, shows what you can do with a mixture of nine grapes and lots of wine from different years in Oregon — make a full-bodied, fruity white that smells something like chenin blanc (pineapple-herbal) and something like sauvignon blanc (see Sancerre, above). Decaf ($1.75) was very good, espresso ($1.75) actually better.

Desserts are much improved over the airmail confections at the original Piattini when it opened on Newbury. That said, they weren’t amazing, although the chocolata ($6.95) is a fallen chocolate cake that certainly does the job. And the castagne ($8.95) is a chestnut crème brûlée that works quite well, even for people who aren’t mad for chestnuts. The mini cannoli ($5.95) are compact versions of the usual, plus one in a chocolate shell, with chocolate chips on the outside. A bite each for four people, if two of them don’t need chocolate. The gelato ($8.95) comes three ways, all white in color, so you get the vanilla and the surprising banana fairly easily, while the third is elusive. Hazelnut? Mint? It was some liqueur, and rather good.

This isn’t my favorite room or noise level, but the location is surprisingly handy to Park Square and the Lyric Stage Company, and it’s only a little farther to the real Theater District. My sense of the early crowd was young and South End, more of a neighborhood place than one people drive in for. But if they did, they wouldn’t be disappointed. Service was good, but the captain-waiter-busperson communications were not, so a patron must sometimes wait for the one to send the other back to the table.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com