RESTAURANTS : ITALIAN SOUTHERN COMFORT : At Drago, the Most Unusual Fare Is From the Bottom of Italy (and the Menu)

If you had been alive during the 12th Century, and if you had been lucky, you would have been a citizen of Sicily. The modern capital of Mafioso crime was once the most peaceful place on Earth; after centuries of strife, the world’s most advanced civilizations came together for a brief interlude. Dominated first by the Greeks and then by the Romans, Palermo was conquered by the Arabs in 831. Three hundred years later, when the Normans swept down from the North, they found it filled with poets, carpenters, geographers and mathematicians. The conquerors turned out, uncharacteristically, to be not only tolerant but also appreciative of what they found, and for a little while, Greek, Roman, Arab and Anglo-Saxon culture came together--and flourished.

The result was, among other things, truly extraordinary food. While Northern Europe concentrated mostly on meat, Sicily was famous for its gardens. All the foodstuffs of the Mediterranean world were available, and although this period lasted less than 100 years, the food of Sicily retains these influences and remains unique.

Although Sicilian food has become so trendy that three major cookbooks on the subject have been published in the last couple of years, it is not so trendy that it is easy to find. Right now there is only one place in Los Angeles that offers a taste of Sicily, and even that is limited to a small corner of the dinner menu.

But it is clearly this corner that is home to the chef’s heart. Celestino Drago has opened his second restaurant; his first name went to his first (which he’s sold), so this new restaurant is simply called Drago. It’s an attractive room, all clean lines and striking art, and at first glance the menu does not seem remarkably different from those at most other modern Italian places in town: a salad of organically grown lettuces, a large list of carpaccios and all the usual pastas--angel hair with fresh tomatoes and basil, tagliatelle with ragu, etc. The main courses include roasted free-range chicken and a grilled veal chop. But at the very end of the menu you find le specialita Siciliane-- and the most interesting dishes.

You may have tasted one of them before you even order. After you give your car to one of the solicitous valets, you’ll be asked to take a seat at the bar until your entire party arrives. Here you’ll undoubtedly be offered something to eat while you’re waiting, and if you’re lucky it will be Drago’s version of arancine-- deep-fried pyramids of rice, rolled in bread crumbs and stuffed with a pungent mixture of meat, cheese and peas. Arancine, one of Sicily’s most ubiquitous foods, are either very, very good or very, very bad--here, they fall into the former category. They leave you eager for anything that follows.

In my case--although I should warn you that nobody I’ve ever eaten with has shared my enthusiasm for all of these dishes--what follows will come entirely from the bottom of the menu. To begin, I like timballo di melanzane , a soft cloud of eggplant custard sitting in a clear tomato sauce. It’s not a complicated dish, but the flavors are so pure and clean that it is completely compelling.

Next I’ll have spaghetti alla bottarga-- an entirely Sicilian dish, and one not for the timid of palate. Bottarga , which is sometimes called Sicilian caviar, is cured, dried tuna roe. At Drago, it is tossed with spaghetti, a little garlic, minced parsley, lemon, olive oil and the crisp, toasted bread crumbs that Sicilians often use where other Italians favor grated cheese. These clear, strong flavors resonate to the same frequency; it is bold food that, to me, is entirely delicious.

I’m equally enamored of the rabbit roasted with peppers and lots of black olives, a dish where the flavors are torqued up to a high intensity. If you’ve been bored by rabbit because it seems like nothing so much as particularly bony chicken, try Drago’s version.

Pasta con le sarde-- spaghetti with fresh sardines and wild fennel--is practically the national dish of Sicily. There are as many versions of this dish as there are cooks in Sicily; at Drago, the dish contains the raisins and almonds that the Arabs who once occupied the land left as their legacy. But while I appreciate the forcefulness of the flavors, I like this version less than others I’ve tried. The sardines are cooked to mushiness, which blends the flavors and, for me, robs the dish of its integrity.

When the chef leaves Sicily, he gives his heart to the daily specials that have been, in my experience, uniformly excellent. One day there was foie gras with grilled radicchio, touched with a faint hint of balsamic vinegar. The flavor of the soft rich liver was beautifully set off by the sharp, slightly bitter smokiness of the radicchio, and the contrast brought out new notes in the liver. Another night the special was venison with figs served in a red-wine sauce that was neither rich nor sweet. The dish was simplicity itself--a straightforward pairing of the fruit and the meat in a particularly appealing manner.

Sometimes the specials are in a completely different mode. One night there were steamed zucchini blossoms, delicately stuffed with a light shrimp mousse and then plunked into a little lake of fresh tomato sauce. The dish was all bright fresh colors and subtle flavors.

There are other dishes on the menu--from other parts of Italy--that are equally unusual. Among the carpaccio dishes is one made of venison, baby artichokes and Gorgonzola cheese. The flavors may sound as if they couldn’t possibly come together, but the artichokes and the cheese are just strong enough to balance each other, leaving the venison as a delicate contrast. There’s a wonderful dish made of nothing but rapini , cooked for a long time with tomatoes and those little round disks of pasta called orecchiette ; like many of Drago’s best dishes, its strength is in its simplicity. Even his minestrone is different from the homey mush you’d expect; it’s a good chicken broth filled with lightly cooked, still-crunchy vegetables. Though less comforting, it is more interesting than ordinary minestrone.

The chef likes to put his stamp on all his dishes. The one he’s become famous for--seafood spaghetti cooked in a big foil envelope--arrives at the table looking like some exotic pillow. Pierced, the pillow releases fragrant steam into the room. But the surprise here is the flavor. The pillow’s contents--mussels, squid and shrimp--have a taste that is completely unexpected, an exotic edge, slightly sweet, like nothing so much as curry.

Drago’s other signature is the big table of desserts in the center of the room; Celestino featured the same thing. There are the usual tiramisu and ricotta cheesecake and, occasionally, cannoli. There’s also a nice pear in an almond-laden pastry surrounded by a moat of caramel.

But the best dessert here is the passion-fruit creme brulee . Is it a Sicilian dish? Since passion fruit is native to Brazil, this seems unlikely. And yet I feel certain that if passion fruit had been available during the great age of Sicily, somebody would have thought of making this dish. Passion fruit has a haunting flavor that is uniquely its own, and married with cream and caramelized sugar, it tastes like all the best things in the world in a single spoonful. Surely this is a dish that any true Sicilian would appreciate.

Drago, 2628 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica; (213) 828-1585. Open nightly for dinner; Monday through Friday for lunch. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $40-$82.

Food stylist: Alice M. Hart/Food for Film