You never really know if a stranger recommending a restaurant is the mother of the owner or the distributor for their tasteless white bread. But somebody just had to plug a favorite Italian restaurant to Johnnie when she was reading before a Paul Geremia concert (God help her, it was an Italian cookbook). Maria's Seaside Café in Westerly was the place. "They do a really nice job" was the praise. Got us curious.

When you step into the dining room and glance around, Misquamicut Beach looks misplaced out the front window, across the street. Despite the café designation, it's formal enough that a sandy-footed surfer would be out of place at the height of summer season. Burgundy and floral cloth is swagged over the windows. The tablecloths are cloth, not plastic, and -- get this -- not covered with glass or butcher paper to save on the laundry bill.

This last impracticality is explained when you sit down and read the menu's history of Maria's. The restaurant was inspired not by a culinary school class in cost management and portion control, but its namesake, the Italian-born matriarch of the Bellone family. According to son John, she fell in love with the idea of launching her own place when the seafood restaurant that used to be here went up for sale eight years ago.

Nowadays, the boss in the kitchen is Rafael Rosas, who last cooked in Colchester, Connecticut, but as the naked tablecloths and signature dishes indicate, the inspiration remains pure Italian mama. (Although the carefully selected wine list of nearly 50 choices smacks of Italian papa. Try the full-bodied Petit Syrah from the Francis Ford Coppola vineyard, as I did, and you'll forgive him for One From the Heart.)

There are several house specialties on the regular menu: The chef stuffs his Portobello Rafael ($7.95) with spinach and sausage, topping it with pepper jack, an appealing possibility. But we wanted to try the prominently billed contribution of the family patriarch, Nicola's Original Grilled Calamari ($8.95), kindly proposed as an alternative to the standard batter-fried version also on the menu. Curled, smoky slices of a large squid body are accompanied by fittingly earthy arugula, for a robust taste combination.

Johnnie had "Maria's Classic" salad ($5.95), which has bite-size pieces of Romaine and iceberg, along with radicchio and endive, plus the clever contrast of feta cheese and chunks of Granny Smith apple. Although the balsamic vinaigrette could have had more snap, the combination was pleasing. The soup of the day ($2.95 and $3.95) was a tomatoey chicken broth containing shreds of meat and brightened with tortilla strips.

A little factoid or quip is under each menu item. (Did you know that a quahog can live up to 225 years, or that the Caesar salad was devised by Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, in Tijuana?) But I didn't need to know more than the name of the first pasta listed -- "Ravioli Fatti di Casa" ($15.95), meaning made in-house -- to know that I wanted to check it out. What could the Bellone family tradition do that the superb output of Venda Ravioli doesn't do for most Italian restaurants in Rhode Island? Well, the five large half-moons were filled with portobello, mozzarella, roasted chicken, sun-dried tomato, and -- who would have thought? -- broccoli rabe. Under a light tomato cream sauce, the blend is quite good, the strong personality of the rabe not overwhelming the taste. Two other kitchen-made ravioli, are also served, as well as eight other pastas.

In the "secondi" section, my veggie-oriented counterpart wasn't attracted by the three chicken dishes, the three veal dishes, and certainly not by the filet mignon, however gussied up. Offered three seafood items, she chose the swordfish steak ($20.95). Marinated in white wine and lemon juice, it was grilled medium as ordered and was quite good, accompanied by scalloped potatoes and a vegetable medley heavy on the cauliflower, to her pleasure.

We saved room to be able to peruse the dessert tray without frustration. There were a couple of good-looking mousses, but the one house-made item was the tiramisu ($5), so we shared that. It looked like a big bowl of mascarpone with two ladyfingers sticking out, but the latter were also within, properly soaked with espresso. The two extra sisters provided a nice crunchy contrast.

I don't know if I'd want to fight the beach traffic at Misquamicut during the summer, but Maria's will be opening its doors until Columbus Day without fear of letting in honks or clamor. Come to think of it, fighting traffic would be worth it.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at billrod@reporters.net.

Issue Date: September 14 - 20, 2001