Scrumptious Scopa

Scopa, the narrow, 40-seat Italian restaurant on the north side of Healdsburg's square, has become wildly popular, to the point where you have to make reservations days in advance and then there's a crush to get in when the doors open.

This is great for the restaurant, with patrons mobbing its seats despite a severe recession that has hurt business at many other places. Reservations are mandatory unless you get lucky. A small crowd was waiting to get in when the door was unlocked at 5:30 p.m. on a recent night, and within a few minutes, the place was full, energized and loud with excited chatter and music on the sound system. Three or four young couples without reservations were turned away.

Scopa's popularity may shave a level of quality off some of the food from time to time, however, as the kitchen gets rushed. Take, for instance, the pizza, which should be a knock-out at a place like this.

Several tables had ordered sausage pizzas. One, at the table next to ours, was loaded with sausage and looked properly cooked, but our Pizza Salsiccia ($16.50 2 stars) was a disappointment. The beautifully made, yeasted crust was burned black all around the rim of its bottom, while the center was undercooked and gooey and the edges were overcooked and hard. Yet on a previous visit, the pizza was superb. The bottom line is that even Scopa can be uneven if attention isn't paid to the quality of every dish that leaves the kitchen.

The problem with the pizza didn't affect the quality of the rest of the food. Dinner started with Antipasto ($8.50 per person 3 stars), a mixed plate of Sicilian green olives; Calabrian salami; little red jewel-like peppers, one stuffed with tuna conserve; roasted eggplant; half a hard-boiled egg topped with olive tapenade, and mixed pickled vegetables.

The Burrata ($11.50 3 stars) was exceptionally good, even though it was made in Los Angeles rather than in-house. A round ball of mozzarella is filled with more cheese dissolved in cream and touched with olive oil and a few, welcome, crunchy crystals of salt. Scopa serves it with grilled Italian bread, marinated roasted eggplant, oven-roasted cherry tomatoes and baby arugula. One of the best dishes of the night was the simplest: a special Cucumber and Heirloom Tomato Salad ($10.50 3? stars) of peeled, crunchy, cool cucumber sliced into rounds and height-of-the-season juicy tomato wedges given a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

"Little oranges" called Arancini ($9.50 3 stars ) were not citrus, but rather breaded balls of saffron risotto filled with mozzarella and deep fried. The plate included a bowl of stewed-tomato sauce for dipping.

Scopa — the name refers to the card game much played in Italy and depicted on a fine mural on the wall above the bar area — hits stride with Tomasso's Sugo Calabrese ($16.50 4 stars), a seemingly simple dish of spaghettini with a tomato-braised beef and pork rib sugo. Sugo is an Italian word meaning juice when referring to fruits, gravy when referring to roasted meats, and sauce when referring to pasta dishes like this one. The pasta sauce is more meat than tomatoes, and enlivened with pecorino romano sheep's-milk cheese. It's just oh-my-gosh good and if it were the only thing on the menu, it would make Scopa the best Italian restaurant in the county. It was while I was in the ecstatic embrace of the Sugo Calabrese that I noticed the red glow of low-key lights coming from behind the back seat of the banquette that runs along the restaurant's east wall. The subtle glow echoed the glow I experienced from the pasta dish and somehow both filled me with joy.

Tagliatelle ($17 3 stars) was the nightly pasta special, consisting of wide-cut noodles, cannellini beans, sausage, vegetables, and red sauce — perfect with the 2008 Chianti Classico "Le Cinciole" for $39, a refined Sangiovese carrying a DOCG band (designating the highest level of Italian wine) on its neck.

Speaking of wines, Scopa carries an excellent assortment of Italian wines as well as Italian varietals grown here in California.

Despite the crush of customers and the noisy bustle, the service manages to be swift, engaged and pleasant.

Two special desserts were scrumptious. Chocolate Torte ($8 3 stars) was nearly pure fudge, loaded with shredded nuts, whipped cream and a real maraschino cherry — not one of those fake, bright red cocktail cherries — on top. And an Almond Torte ($8 3? stars) was dense and cakey, with crunchy almonds giving a nutty flavor to the wedge, topped with whipped cream and a rich berry reduction. Both desserts were house made and worth anybody's eight bucks.

To sum up: In a town with great restaurants left and right, Scopa stands out for its authentic approach to Italian food, its modest prices for food and wine, and its warm, inviting, convivial atmosphere.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review for the Sonoma Living section. He can be reached at jeffcox@sonic.net.