I discovered Arturo Joe’s through the back door, so to speak. I was looking for a place in South County to mind my own business with a Montecristo and a nice glass of red wine without inviting any health-crazed glowers across patio tables. So when I noticed they had a cigar lounge, it felt like open arms were beckoning.

The bar is closed off on the right of the entry area, so if you’re smoke-wreathed, you know that only consenting adults are sipping or dining with you. Not only are there plush chairs and sofas for us vice-ridden customers, a decent selection of wines by the glass, which are also reasonably priced by the bottle, are on hand.

When I noticed that the appetizer menu listed three fried calamari variations ($7.95 each) competing with the standard Rhode Island preparation, I had to try one. The calamari and baby shrimp pesto version was a winner, the shrimp plentiful and flavorful. The quantity was enormous, packed with pieces of tomato, black olives, and pine nuts. There was far too much garlic-infused oil, however — a feature that could be turned to advantage by ordering it over pasta, as the menu proposes.

Another time, I checked out their sandwiches, since more than a dozen are offered at lunch, plus another half-dozen all day. Some sound novel: pesto on a Black Angus burger, for example, or creamy mascarpone cheese with sautéed chicken tenderloins. Prices range from $5.95 to $7.95. Pasta salad instead of fries is a lunch-only option with them, for some reason. I pity the person who forgoes the mix of regular and sweet potato fries served with my "Arturo chicken sandwich." I like to try signature offerings, since the chef risks eyebrows rising higher than usual if they’re misguided. This one was pretty safe: nicely grilled pieces of chicken, topped with bacon, cheese, and Russian dressing, in a soft torpedo roll.

Arturo’s wood-grilled pizzas ($7.95) are another option for midday appetites, with 10 varieties, from Buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil, to Buffalo wings sauce on chicken. The most ingenious pizza I’ve ever come across has to be their number five: a three-cheese base under a Caesar salad. You heard right. (Wolfgang Puck, take your macadamia nut and pineapple pizza and go home, please.) I had the number three, a clever combination of compatible tastes: cannellini beans and crumbled sausage, mushrooms and garlic oil, goat cheese for mellowness, Romano for bite, and mozzarella to hold it all together. Thin crust and the cheeses baked brown, just the way I like. Yum.

The front dining room has local charm, with its four-foot sepia blowups of period photos, all from the Gilded Age heyday, when hotels lined Narragansett Pier for us non-robber-barons. For a dinnertime excursion I chose to sit there, rather than in the large room in the back, with its quasi-Renaissance atmosphere. A good Italian bread came with three cloves of roasted garlic, soft enough to spread, in the olive oil — a nice touch. Perusing the menu, I knew better than to order one of the half-dozen bruschette ($5.95-$6.95), seeing on another table how huge they are. I had one of the two soups of the day ($1.75/$3.50), choosing the corn chowder over the tomato. It was creamy, buttery, and smoky from bits of ham.

Since this is mainly an Italian restaurant, there are plenty of veal and pasta choices, in addition to chicken and steaks. I felt like having fish, and the only two options that were not over pasta were scrod, each served with vegetable medley or red bliss mashed that night. The scrod pizziola ($12.95) was delicious, piled with black olives, pieces of tomato and scallions I noticed in several menu items that chef Peter DeSimone eschews onions when scallions, milder and prettier, will do.

I had to come back for the pasta, knowing you’d be just as curious. Since the previously mentioned meals had been done so well, I went after the most challenging: angel hair aglio e olio. Not only is capellini tricky to cook, the garlic and olive oil of the name can be one-dimensional. Well, the thin pasta was overcooked, but there was too much else going on for that to ruin the dish. Tomatoes, chopped black olives, scallions again, and not overpowered with garlic. Quite enjoyable. And huge — my $4.95 lunch portion filled a plate, and with the six extra shrimp was enough for another meal. (The shrimp are only $3.25 extra, chicken $2.50.) Heaven help anyone who orders the $8.95 dinner-size portion.

Needless to say, I had to take home the dessert I ordered. The tartufa ($4.25) had the soaked-lady-fingers lightness of a tiramisu, plus the textural contrast of a pastry shell. Did I mention how it was topped with plenty of bittersweet chocolate shavings?

Good ol’ Arturo Joe’s. All that and light on the lira.