Yes, there are still restaurants to be discovered. Now and then, a place sneaks in past the reviewers and chef groupies, and a year can go by with hardly a write-up. That’s Sophia’s Grotto, a pretty good piece of the North End in newly chic Roslindale Square. It helps that you can’t see it from any major street. The grotto is not underground, but behind the little shops of Corinth and Birch Streets, in an alley-turned-courtyard. And even as a room, it’s hardly a grotto; the ceilings are duplex height, with exposed beams, and the bits of tile roof over the doorway to the semi-open kitchen facilitate the sense that one is eating outdoors next to a stucco building, in Italy. The Sophia is Sophia Loren, with a big photo on the wall.

Food starts with a basket of sliced Fornax bread, from Roslindale’s own artisanal bakery, and an orange bean spread with a few cumin seeds — our first hint of Spanish among the Italian food. (The Gipsy Kings on the background tape were hint number two.) One can eat simply here with, say, a wood-oven pizzetta ($6.50–$9.95) or, apparently, a George Foreman–pressed panino ($5.95–$7.95). But my experiments with each suggest that you not do so. The Vesuvio pizzetta ($9.95) was thin-crust and crisp, not overloaded with toppings — tomato, cheese, sausage — but it wasn’t sensational. And the Stromboli panino ($7.95) — someone here likes volcanoes — uses Fornax bread instead of the usual soft rolls, so it fell apart; a panino is supposed to be a pressed sandwich that never falls apart. This panino’s instability was due more to the solidity of the bread than to the lack of cheese glue, although the latter was a factor, as were some sautéed onions and peppers that tasted great but weren’t sticky.

Better to appetize with something like the Spanish antipasto ($8.50), an impressive selection of olive tapenade on toast, pickled artichokes, Manchego cheese studded with hot-pepper bits, a long slice of spicy chorizo sausage, wonderful pickled onion, roasted red pepper, marinated sun-dried tomatoes, assorted olives, and a bed of very convincing serrano ham.

Likewise in a Spanish mode, the calamari ($7.95) are impeccably dry-fried and crisp, with a little cornmeal in the light batter and a stinging dip of hotted-up mayonnaise. Crab cakes ($8.95) harked back to the vertical food of the original Terramia, where our chef once worked. The two meaty crab cakes are stacked, with a fine mess of field greens on top of that.

A portobello mushroom ($6.95) would have been a "vegetable napoleon" in the South End. Upon the grilled mushroom sat a slice of grilled eggplant, one of zucchini, another of yellow squash, and just enough cheese. Simple and satisfying.

The caprese salad ($7.50) had remarkably good tomatoes for early June, but the basil wasn’t there yet. By the time this review is in print, it will be singing. Meanwhile, a special on watercress salad ($8.50) featured two perfectly grilled jumbo shrimp and a scattering of craisins, red onion, and grilled cherry tomatoes.

Our best entrée was a special on artichoke ravioli ($16.95), mostly for the fabulous fresh pasta, somewhat for the novelty and rich flavor of the artichoke filling, somewhat for the sweet Marsala or port-wine cream sauce, and probably more than a little for the nicely plumped shrimp and sun-dried tomatoes with a bit of crunchy asparagus on top. Also in the key of pasta, ziti boscaiola ($10.95) are a superb platter of well-made ridged tubes with just enough tomato-cream sauce and bits of mushroom and asparagus.

Paella ($15.95) — you know, Spanish risotto — is a very good job, a little on the wet side, with every piece of short-grain rice distinct, and lots of seafood, none of it overcooked, from the in-shell mussels and clams to the squid rings and shrimp. About the only entrée that didn’t slay me was the grilled fillet of salmon ($16.95), which I thought had rather too much wasabi crust. Scrape off the crust, though, and the fish was cooked correctly, and very good with the caper sauce. However, a cylinder of layered thin-sliced potatoes was slightly burnt on top and caramelized throughout, not my favorite potato flavor.

The wine list is Italian with a lot of Spanish, and includes interesting selections by the glass. For some reason, all the red wines tasted soft, warm, and somewhat alcoholic our night. On a hot night, a slight chill, maybe 55-60 degrees, does a lot for red wines. The 2003 Vina Alarba "Old Vines" Grenache ($6.50/glass; $25/bottle) had some bite and body and rough fruit as well. The 2002 Viña Rey "70 Barricas" ($6.95/$27) — another Spanish red, this time from the tempranillo grape — ought to have been a better wine, but tasted simpler at our table. A 2002 shiraz ($5.50/$21) from Cockatoo Ridge was a little richer. And the best red under the circumstances may have been the 2003 "2 Brothers Big Tattoo" ($5.50/$21), a Chilean version of an Australian cabernet-syrah blend that held up to a variety of strong flavors.

There are only four desserts, and two are scoops of unspecial chocolate or vanilla gelato ($3.95). But the chocolate cake ($5.95) is good enough to be the only dessert, a double-chocolate, fudgy wedge with whipped cream and strawberries. Cheesecake ($5.95) is nice and heavy also, with the same garnishes and some dots of raspberry sauce.

Service on a night that got crowded was very good. If a permit comes through for outdoor tables, things may slow down, but the staff seemed equal to all present challenges. The room has bare brick and plants, plus slate or faux-slate tables, wood floors, a stucco wall or two, and that blown-up photo of Sophia herself.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.