The good, the bad and the fritti/ New Paravicini's shows promise

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 25, 2003 by RALPH MILLIS

Located in an older, standalone building in Old Colorado City, Paravicini's looks like one of those small cafs or trattoria that jump out at you when you're negotiating 90-degree turns in southern European villages.

Old brick, lovely wood, posters and warm yellows, a kitchen bustling in full view and making the nicest white noise you can imagine.

Based on appearances alone, Paravicini's shows a lot of promise; three visits there, however revealed both the very good, the OK, and, unfortunately, the obvious (but rectifiable) not-so-verygood.

First, the very good or, in the case of the calamari fritti ($6.95), the absolutely superb. Fried squid cuts across all cuisines; I order it whenever it is on the menu, not only because I am a cephalopod freak but because it demands a simple treatment with a light hand to bring out its delicate character.

If a chef does himself proud here, often the rest of the menu reflects similar care.

Paravicini's version is, quite simply, the best I have found in Colorado Springs - a generous mound of crispy rings and tentacles (what a young acquaintance labels as "creepy-crawlies") reminiscent of the finest hand-battered tempura.

My serving was so fresh and hot that it audibly sizzled when I squeezed lemon on it. Push the small bowl of ubiquitous marinara sauce to the side and eat the calamari with only a twist. If you glop it up, you have carelessly placed your everlasting gastronomic soul in peril for no good earthly reason.

The veal parmigiana sandwich ($7.95; also eggplant and chicken versions), almost a hand-and-ahalf cutlet hanging over a round rosemary loaf and smothered with marinara sauce (appropriately and effectively applied), is a great lunch option.

The sausage and peppers sandwich ($7.95) is likewise satisfying. The split, slightly charred smoky links are covered with grilled mild and hot peppers that are spicy enough to get your attention without bothering your coworkers back at the office along about mid- afternoon.

The sandwiches at lunch are tasty and durable, and the pastas ($5.95-$9.50) are generously ladled.

The veal marsala ($13.95) on the dinner menu is unusual, and interesting, in that the strips of veal are heavily browned, and the clinging sauce has no hint of marsala, even as a "nose" or elusive aftertaste.

I rather liked it and would order it again, although too often veal with oh-too-stolid sauces remind me of Mystery-Meat Thursdays at the cafeteria when I was an undergraduate.

That's the "very good." Here's the "OK." The antipasto platter ($9.95) at dinner is predictable. I would opt for the separate, discrete antipasto options instead.

Four of the main-course selections we tried were acceptable but not worth building your anniversary around.

The ravioli ($6.50; small order), cheese-filled, with marinara sauce, was, in the words of a diner who has built a young life worshipping at the apron of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee, "lost in the sauce."

Likewise, the swordfish putanesca ($14.95), a nice, thick portion finished with olives, dried tomatoes and capers over thin pasta, was overwhelmed by the sauce; the fish itself looked terrific.

The chicken saltimbocca ($12.50) - sauted with prosciutto and sage and then winebraised - and the chicken piccata ($11.95) - sauted with butter, lemon juice and capers - tasted middle-of-the-road, like food for an end-of-year football awards banquet of 500.

Both the saltimbocca and piccata are classically made with flattened escalopes of veal, meltingly tender, almost graceful, if food can be characterized that way. Paravicini's versions with chicken, OK as far asthey went, suffered in comparison.

I can only surmise that chicken was used for reasons of economy and inoculation against menu shock, although the numerous posted newspaper reviews of the owner's previous restaurants back East mention that he had incorporated many of his family recipes into his menus.

As the veal parmigiana and the veal marsala prove, however, Paravicini's can successfully prepare this most delicate and tender of meats when it is a menu option.

Now, the unpleasantness: the "not so very good." First, the lobster bisque ($4.95), a specialty recommended with raves by the dinner waitress: the words "stone-cold, clotted and inedible," unfortunately, inescapably, spring to mind.

I made aspecial trip back for lunch the next day just to try it again, believing that surely some unspeakable catastrophe had occurred in the kitchen during the dinner service.

When I ordered it, the lunch waitress, forestalling trouble and honest to a fault, immediately cautioned: "Just to warn you: There's not a lot of it in the little cup and it's expensive."

It was warmer than the version from the night before.

Second, the service. At an earlier lunch, the waiter let me order a side salad, not telling me that my sandwich came with a salad. Result: two salads and no excuse.

Dinner could have been a disaster had our party been pressed for time or even locked into a normal dinner schedule: start to finish, dinner took almost three hours to serve, with inordinate gaps of time even after courses had been ordered, and wait staff wandered in and out like characters in a bad 1950s French movie; dishes were left uncleared; we were not offered coffee at the end of the meal but had to flag down a waitress not our own to be served.