RESTAURANT REVIEW : Down-Home Cafe With an Italian Accent

If you want to spend $80 on a faded flannel shirt or $69 on a little ribbed T-shirt or $249 on a vintage bowling shirt with “Gordon” embroidered over the pocket (from a particularly good year, I guess), shop at Replay on Melrose, possibly the most expensive casual clothes emporium in the city. If you want to spend a lovely evening on a wide porch eating reasonable and delicious Italian food served by a friendly, attentive staff, go to Replay Cafe, the restaurant attached to this retail store.

Replay Cafe looks like a deep-country bastion of down-home American cooking. One expects grits and ham. Barbecue and hush puppies. Certainly fried green tomatoes. The porch, which must have been decorated by one expert set dresser, has more distilled small-town ambience than any small town in existence. There’s a wealth of antique tin advertising signs. Parts of windmills. Heavy old wooden school chairs. Red bandanna cloth layered under buttermilk-colored tablecloths. All Replay needs to look like an idealized Farmers Alliance store is a benchful of geezers and a few fat hound dogs snoring in the sun.

But we’re in West Hollywood, across the street from the Bodhi Tree bookstore. In lieu of a Main Street, there’s “Decorators’ Row.” The customers range from gay couples to hipsters, Asian tourists to loners immersed in “The Celestine Prophecy.” And, because Replay is an Italian company, the family-run cafe is an Italian restaurant.

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At breakfast, the ham in the ham and cheese omelet is prosciutto. There may be no fried green tomatoes, but a side of grilled roma tomatoes sprinkled with oregano is a luscious substitute. The manager admits, “We are just learning about American breakfasts. For us Italians, breakfast is coffee and a croissant with marmalade.”

If there is a gap between what we Americans expect for breakfast and what Replay Cafe serves, the results are mostly pleasurable. The toast is heated french bread; the potatoes are roasted, tasty, greaseless and the homemade waffle tastes like sponge cake and comes with raspberry coulis and a blown-glass pitcher of syrup. A juicer produces a tart, refreshing, truly apple-green fresh apple juice and sweet carrot juice. Espresso and cappuccino are terrific.

Lunch and dinner are ordered from the same small menu. The food is fresh, simple, well-prepared and enhanced by the scenic setting, pretty China and a pampering staff.

There’s a nice attention to detail here. Carpaccio, cool rounds of raw beef on a bed of arugula with large flakes of Parmigiana, is dressed at the table with olive oil and fresh-squeezed lemon juice. A respectable minestrone is ladled, steaming, from a copper sauce pan.

Clams, mussels and sweet shrimp are cooked lightly in a delicious brodetto with tomatoes and a hearty dose of garlic. The Caesar salad hits a wrong note, though, the dressing white, dull, a little gluey. We overload a thin-crusted pizza with too many toppings--the bland, chewy sausage is a mistake. Best to stick with the Replay Classic: tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil.

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Eight pasta toppings can be matched to six pasta shapes and ordered al dente-- or not. We stuck with the basics, al dente: a decent linguine with clams and a beguiling penne Norma with diced eggplant, tomato and shaved ricotta.

All told, I was most taken with some of the nightly specials and items from the menu under Griglia. A thin slice of swordfish grilled, with lemon and capers, packs a wallop of meaty flavor. A gorgeous veal chop, smothered in porcini mushrooms and a touch of cream, couldn’t be better. A wedge of salmon, sprinkled with fresh tomato and capers, is simple and satisfying. Pollo al limone, tender chicken paillards sauteed in white wine, butter and lemon juice, is light, not too filling.

Most of the desserts are purchased pastries: Both the amaretto and lemon curd tarts are highly sweet and unmemorable. But the house-made tiramisu, served in a snifter, strikes a lovely balance between fluffy, rich mascarpone cheese and intense, espresso-logged ladyfingers.

* Replay Cafe, 8607 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood . (310) 657-6404. Open 7 days for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Beer and wine served. Valet parking. Visa, MasterCard and American Express accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $23-$57.