The area's best Italian

<p>Clap your hands. There's a party goin' on at Bottega in Yountville. E molto divertente (lots of fun). Good wine, happy customers. And most of all, Michael Chiarello's excellent Italian food.</p><p>You may remember that Chiarello burst upon the Napa Valley restaurant scene in the late 1980s at Tra Vigne in St. Helena, creating full-flavored Italian recipes drawn from his family heritage. In the '90s he departed to expand his horizons. He won an Emmy for his work as chef on the Food Network's "Easy Entertaining" program; used his aesthetic sense to develop NapaStyle, a collection of home furnishings, cooking utensils, recipes and wines; started Chiarello Family Winery; wrote cookbooks; and became a media star.</p><p>It's good to see him back overseeing a local kitchen so we all have a chance to taste again what made Tra Vigne so special in its early days. His chef de cuisine, Nick Ritchie, stays true to Chiarello's vision of richly flavored southern Italian cooking.</p><p>One reason for the party atmosphere at Bottega (Italian for "workshop") is Chiarello himself, who seems to be all smiles and friendly greetings for whomever enters the new restaurant. It's a beautiful space, part of the refurbished Vintage 1870 Marketplace complex in the heart of Yountville. A fireplace burns on the patio outside where comfy chairs await. Inside, the room seats 90. Though opened just two months ago, the design has a comfortable, lived-in look. Lights are low. Flooring is old tongue-and-groove planking and several walls are old, original brick. The open kitchen is shielded from the dining room by a glass partition.</p><p>Pleasant surprises include the wait staff: very professional without being snooty. They go about their rounds swiftly and in good spirits, as though they truly enjoy what they're doing, which makes dining there that much more enjoyable.</p><p>Another pleasant surprise is the wine list with its reasonable prices. Where else can you find a 2006 A. Rafanelli Zinfandel for $45, or a 2006 Chappellet "Mountain Cuvee" Cab for $42, or a 2005 Hall Merlot for $40? And here's the topper: Among the several pages of Italian wines is the gorgeous 2005 Feudi di San Gregorio Aglianico for $30.</p><p>Dinner opened with a basket of really good, hot Italian bread and a garlic and olive oil spread to smear it with. Then came an introductory fanfare of House-Made Salumi ($14 ). The plate included bresaola, coppa, speck (a German cut of uncured pork belly), hot and spicy chilies, and pickled vegetables. House-cured organic prosciutto -- tender, luscious -- is also on the menu.</p><p>In case the salumi didn't get your taste buds up and dancing, along came a Burrata ($12 ), a tennis ball-sized lump of soft mozzarella stuffed inside with an almost liquid filling of cream with more mozzarella dissolved in it. The result is unbelievably dreamy and creamy. It comes with artichokes prepared two ways: deep fried crispy cuttings and lemon-braised hearts. Bruschetta is cut from that same good Italian bread and toasted, ready to receive some of the moist burrata.</p><p>A burrata is one of those dishes that's almost too good. With the arrival of Polenta Under Glass ($12 ), here was a dish that actually was too good. Creamy, soft polenta is put into a jar with a hinged glass top, and caramelized chewy-crunchy wild mushrooms are sprinkled on the polenta. The waiter brings a sauceboat of "balsamic game sauce," which is a reduction of balsamic vinegar and the meat juices of game like rabbit and grouse. The result is an inky, impossibly intense liquid the consistency of maple syrup. This is spooned into the jar and meant to be eaten along with mushrooms and polenta. Some palates, jaded from decades of devouring intense sauces, might be brightened by this one, which will surely jump from the spoon and slap their tongues around. Other folks may simply raise their eyebrows and say, "This is too much."</p><p>The flavors were stimulating, but just right, in the dish called Angry Hopper Shrimp ($13 ½). Hopper shrimp are those deluxe pink prawns one sees at better fish markets. They come from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. These three fellows had no particular reason to be angry, other than the kitchen's use of enough chilies to give them an aggressive and welcome bite. They rested on a sea of white bean puree enlivened with fried garlic slices and topped with deep-fried crinkly basil leaves.</p><p>One would suspect that at a restaurant like this, the pastas would be house made -- and one would be correct. The Whole Egg Taglierini with Clams ($16 ) was a triumphant plate of food, the kind that makes you say to yourself, "I've got to come back and have this again." A couple of handfuls of Manila clams are nestled down into the pasta along with a rich topping of garlic, basil, and parsley cooked in olive oil that's deglazed with white wine. Then wonderfully flavorful, spicy, chopped Calabrese sausage is added.</p><p>This sausage is made from chunks of hand-cut, not ground, lean pork. Salt, paprika, ground cayenne, curing condiments, fennel seeds, dried garlic and black pepper are added. It's all mixed together and stuffed into hog casings, smoked for four days, air-dried for four weeks and stored in jars covered with lard, where it will keep for a year. The plate is redolent of southern Italy's sun and farms, it looks beautiful, and it tastes like your best food date ever.</p><p>Risotto is an Italian classic, but it can sometimes be so mild it's uninteresting. Not in Chef Chiarello's kitchen. Here Petrale Sole Risotto ($17 ) is done "al onda," or wavy as Italians call wet risotto, and is loaded with chunks of petrale sole, parsley, butter, cheese, and broth. But then, to double the flavor fun, a big spoonful of puttanesca sauce is added and swirled over the top of the rice. It's a brilliant, simple way of adding jazz to the chamber music.</p><p>Wood Oven Roasted Cornish Chicken ($23 ) is as good a chicken as you'll find. The two halves are perfectly juicy and crusted, crispy and salty, rich with rosemary-lemon chicken jus and paired with semi-mashed Peruvian purple potatoes.</p><p>"Forever Roasted" Duroc Pork ($23 ½) could have been roasted a day less than forever, for it was dry and stringy. The choice of its accompaniments, though, was just right: arugula, roasted honey-sage Sierra Beauty apple slices, and crispy pork rinds.</p><p>It was hard to evaluate the Whole Citrus Napoleon ($8 ½) because I'd never had anything like it. Pressed and fried pasta leaves were given large spoonfuls of whole lemon and blood orange curds -- meaning the curds are made from pureed whole citrus, skins and all, rendering them bitter from their citrus oils. Pomegranate and citrus segments accompanied. I'm not sure the aggressive curds were to my taste, but I admired the chef's go-for-it attitude.</p><p>As well as for dinner, Bottega is open for lunch Thursday - Sunday. </p><p>To sum up: The best Italian restaurant in the Wine Country has returned. Hooray! Hooray!</p><p>Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.</p>