Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- What used to be Fiamma Osteria offers food so fanciful that the ``Osteria'' -- implying a simplicity you no longer find here -- has been dropped.

That's clear enough, but another linguistic dilemma lingers at Fiamma: Can this Soho stalwart still call itself Italian?

The new chef-partner, Fabio Trabocchi, comes from Le Marche. OK, he's Italian. His luxurious and refined cooking at Maestro, just outside Washington, was so revered that the restaurant was able to impose ruthless financial penalties on those who dared reserve and then failed to cancel in time. (I know -- I was a victim.)

He moved to New York a few months ago to join the Stephen Hanson empire. The already well-regarded Fiamma Osteria was spiffed up, but it still looks like a fashionable men's club in Rome: wooden floors, white tablecloths, sturdy flatware, reddish-orange glow and framed prints so conservative you wouldn't notice them if you ate there every day of your life.

The place is on three floors, so you'll spend time either riding the elevator or walking up and down a staircase lined with stone blocks, the sort favored by designers of dungeons.

Service is first-rate, and the front desk sets the mood: The hostess taking coats one night was a young blonde in a scooped-neck blouse. She reminded me of Anita Ekberg, star of the Italian classic ``La Dolce Vita.'' Ekberg wasn't Italian, either.

Complex Ingredients

Trabocchi's cuisine is rich and complex. It tends to be compactly arranged in the center of wide-rimmed, flying-saucer- style plates. Between the time you order and the time your dish arrives (the kitchen is slow), you'll probably have forgotten most of the ingredients your waiter has told you to expect.

The carpaccio, for example, is nothing I've previously encountered. Generally the dish is sliced raw beef topped with arugula and grated parmigiano-reggiano. Here it's a plate of bite-size bits. Half are Australian Kobe tartare crowned with a parmigiano tuile and a quail egg, the other half, Kobe carpaccio wrapped around marinated tofu and topped with parmigiano and sauteed mushrooms. It's so delicious a friend e-mailed me the day after dinner and said she had dreamed of it.

The cuisine is not what you're used to eating in Italian restaurants. It's not red-sauce Italian-American. It's not an attempt to replicate regional Italian. While the ingredients are fresh and pricey, with plenty of Vermont goat and rabbit, Dover sole and Scottish langoustine (note the places of origin), there's little greenery and very few vegetables, at least none that stand alone. Don't expect your standard dose of broccoli rabe.

Trabocchi Worship

Nor is anything simple, usually a hallmark of Italian cuisine.

When I informed a foodie friend who worships Trabocchi (she's Italian, by the way) that I was interested in Fiamma, she delivered a preemptive strike, writing back that ``the considerable criticism he's been getting that his food isn't Italian is simply ignorant.''

Allow me to join the club. (Finally, I've found one that will have me as a member.)

Fiamma does indeed remind me of Italian restaurants, the kind I call Michelin-Italian. The Michelin guide, so clear-cut and knowledgeable about French food, tends to lay waste to other cuisines, and nowhere has it done more harm than in Italy.

Restaurants seeking coveted Michelin stars dress waiters in tuxes. They take grandmothers out of kitchens and put them in nursing homes. They think French, and they perform awkwardly.

What's Italian?

Fiamma is somewhat analogous, though it's much more proficient. Maybe the food doesn't look Italian. For sure it doesn't taste Italian. But the place executes well.

Admittedly, the pastas are not about pasta. They're about everything else on the plate. Risotto was dominated by squash puree, tortellini by oxtail and sweetbreads, spaghetti by sea urchin and sardines (not the best fish pairing). When the pasta itself is sensational, as with the sheep's-milk-ricotta ravioli, you wish it came unadorned.

The fontina-cheese sauce for the fonduta, deliriously intense, arrived in a tiny pitcher. It's supposed to be poured over mushrooms. I dipped bread in mine.

Desserts are similar: atypical but admirable. Don't miss the brown butter cake, a rare Fiamma dish that tastes homespun. (Skip the mean-spirited gelato, six bites for $12.)

Even the wine list has expanded its parameters. It used to be all Italian. Now it's international. Bottles start at $40, but every one I ordered was impeccably sourced. For a white, try the 2006 Vina Godeval, and for a red, the 2005 Altos de Luzon -- both Spanish, both $45, both superb.

The menu appears modest, with only about 20 dishes, but Trabocchi's repertoire seems inexhaustible. He offers new items nightly, which is also unusual. Traditionally, Italians never change anything.

The Bloomberg Questions

Cost? The three-course fixed-price menu is $75, a six- course tasting menu $120.

Sound level? A quiet clientele, especially early in the evening.

Date place? For foodies, yes. Not for light-eating pasta primavera couples.

Inside tip? The Vermont-goat's-milk butter is fine, but to enhance the Italian mood via bread dipping, request the astonishing Armando Manni organic olive oil.

Special feature? The sommeliers, led by the soon-to-be- celebrated Ania Zawieja, are wonderfully accommodating and always right.

Private room? Yes.

Lunch? Not yet.

Will I be back? Yes, for the good service, the fine wine and to carry on my adventures in Trabocchi's cuisine.

Fiamma is at 206 Spring St., near Sullivan Street. Information: +1-212-653-0100; http://www.fiammarestaurant.com.

(Alan Richman is a restaurant critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Alan Richman at thecritic@optonline.net.

Last Updated: October 31, 2007 00:03 EDT