Sauce has been open for about a year without attracting a lot of critical notice. Why? Partly because its Italian-Mediterranean menu is pretty common in these parts, and partly because some of its dishes are nondescript — the worst adjective in the reviewer’s lexicon. If something is good, it can be described happily. If something is bad, it can be described humorously. Even when food is mediocre, there is a vocabulary for that. But the undistinguished, uninteresting, nondescript dish is the writer’s nightmare. However, since Sauce has some very good food, some of which is unusually good pizza, there’s no reason to dwell on the nondescript, and no reason to be put off by the familiarity of the concept.

For example, "Crispy Spicy Calamari" ($8.95) is a cliché, but a very good one. (When I started this job, the idea that someday fried squid would be a cliché would have surprised me almost as much as the disappearance of Mornay sauce.) Ours were perhaps a little overly browned, but clean-tasting, and the dip of spaghetti sauce was so much better than the usual — why, they could have named the restaurant after it!

A hummus plate ($7.50) is distinguished mainly by the subtle use of dill as a flavoring, not common but very good in chickpea paste. The salad of cukes and peppers filled the plate nicely, as did pita toasts. Grilled shrimp bruschetta ($9.95) was all good, though not all of a piece. Two large prawns were nicely grilled, among thick slices of bread (bruschetta is everywhere else made from toast) covered with good fall tomatoes made better with a chefly bit of vinegar. The only attack of the nondescript is the clam chowder ($4.95), described honestly enough as "a creamy New England favorite." New Englanders do like thick, creamy soup that doesn’t taste like seafood, but has bits of chopped clam and potato in it. It isn’t just the texture that is creamy. Close your eyes and taste the broth. It tastes like ... cooked cream.

The best of the main dishes is pizza margherita ($7.95/small; $11.95/large). The small is about a foot in diameter; I don’t think the large is served in the restaurant, just as take-out. It’s thin-crust, and really enjoyable. Margherita was queen of Italy and on a 19th-century visit to Naples, someone made her a pizza in the colors of the newly accepted Italian flag (Naples had been part of Spain): red tomato sauce, white cheese, green pesto. It works so well here that I began to think about why pizza is so good, and why everyone likes it. Eventually, I decided that this is the last form of fresh-baked bread most Americans ever have.

Sauce’s porterhouse pork chop ($16.95) would have been better with ... a little sauce. What it does have is a stuffing of spinach and cheese, but that didn’t keep it from tasting a little dry, what with the new leaner pork and all. A sauce — probably something like good old gloopy gravy, which would have stuck to it better than the menu’s "aged balsamic vinaigrette" — would have perfected it, although garlic mashed potatoes underneath is a perfectly fine idea.

So is seared salmon ($16.95), here done over a corn cake with bacon — my guest asked for some grilled vegetables and had fine slices of squash and eggplant — and very nicely, not overcooked at all. The only problem entrée is spaghetti carbonara ($11.95), and the main problem is deviation from the classic form. In Rome, this is a plate of barely cooked spaghetti glazed with eggs and garnished with smoked bacon. Here we have a sweet, creamy white sauce with onions and cheese — no evident egg — served with weaker bacon and softer pasta. Kids will like this, but carbonara just isn’t macaroni and cheese.

Sauce is a bar, and has drinks aimed at the young, hip Davis Square crowd. We had glasses of wine, including a terrific, apple-y Spanish albariño from Bourganes ($8.50) and a forgettable Jacobs Creek merlot ($6.75). Coffee and decaf ($2) are quite good, and tea is non-caffeinated chai ($2.50) in a metal filter pot — a best buy if you like spicy tea.

The fallen chocolate soufflé ($6.95) wins a place in my personal garden of Eden. Almost cake outside, pure molten ecstasy inside, with some ice cream to contrast the warmth, it’s as good as any of its ilk. Key-lime "divine" ($6.95) has you expecting pie, but it’s a cheesecake. You can eat it, but for me the point of key lime is something sour and distinctively flavored, like that pie we usually get. On the other hand, the pear crostata ($6.95) is outstanding, just lots of fruit, a little spice, and melting pastry, again served hot with good ice cream as a contrast.

The stumbling block was tiramisu ($6.95), which always borders on the nondescript because it is a vaguely designed dish of liqueur-soaked cake and cream. Here, it’s jumbled further so it can be served in an ice-cream dish, with whipped cream on top. It’s like eating pudding with cake in it. (The people rise as one: "What’s wrong with that?") Well, it’s nondescript.

The surroundings at Sauce are very nice: Matisse-burgundy walls with ragged ceilings in Tuscan yellow, dark wood on the floor, slate on the walls here and there, and neat orange lamps. They play loud alternative rock — nobody’s perfect.

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