Atlanta Journal-Constitution - August 2003
John Kessler

WHEN RICCARDO ULLIO WAS 12, his family moved from Trezzano sul Naviglio, Italy, to Conyers. So long polenta, hello grits. The move may have been hard and even a little traumatic, but the timing couldn't have been better for a budding restaurateur: Ullio learned, as a kid, how to eat in Italy and, as a teenager, how to party in America.

Ullio's canny POV -- his soulful food and edgy scene -- has been evident at each of the restaurants he opened. The first, with partners, was the original Pasta da Pulcinella on Peachtree (he is not associated with the current version). Then, with his wife as a business partner, he debuted the more ambitious Sotto Sotto and its sister pizzeria, Fritti.

The best has always been Sotto Sotto, and I think it keeps getting better. Or maybe it isn't any better but seems so because dining there is no longer a nerve-shredding ordeal. You don't face down the martini-breathed food-lizard crowd every night, fighting them for both table space and the upper sound registers above the din. Maybe Sotto Sotto doesn't produce the same frisson today as when it opened four years ago, but imagine: You can get a reservation, get seated as soon as you arrive, enjoy your dining company and even hear yourself chew.

And I like what I heard emanating from between my bicuspids. I felt lucky when I sat down to a couple of meals and re-communed with this menu -- the fresh pastas, that wood-roasted whole fish boned tableside, all those dishes that taste so untouched by the trends and schlock of Italian cooking in America.

As I explore the menu, I am torn. Do I get the risotto with shellfish that I fell in love with four years ago or the odd-sounding risotto Mantecato? Mmm . . . both. The former is still good -- the same heap of shells and shrimp with intense orange rice clinging to them. The latter is a minor revelation. It is your basic tan blob flecked with a few lightly caramelized onions but depressed in the center, gravy-in-potatoes style, to hold a pool of syrupy 12-year-old balsamic. You mix, spoon and let the complex sweetness bloom on your tongue.

Of course, what's best about both risottos is the texture -- the result of Ullio's super-duper top-secret fast technique. I have my theories that I gleaned from a food science Web site. Let's just say, as the food scientists would, that Ullio manages to fully gelatinize the starch in the rice, but it retains kernel integrity and releases enough branched-chain amylopectin to produce a creamy cohesion. Yum-ola.

I wish I could make a meal of risotto and pasta, but that's always the critical choice at Sotto Sotto. I am fond of the little ravioli filled with eggplant-walnut purée and splashed with a bright, fresh tomato sauce. But then I always hesitate over the tortelli di Michelangelo -- pasta pockets stuffed with the master's recipe for veal, chicken and pork forcemeat.

Now I'm a fan of the lasagnette alla Bolognese. It isn't a lasagna as much as an oven-baked jumble of sheer fresh pasta with Bolognese and béchamel sauces. And in every forkful you cut away you'll find both a pocket of velvety cream and a tomatoey cache of long-simmered meat.

The new dish, the old fave: Which to choose? My new discovery is the baby pheasant, crisp wood-roasted quarters that offer the real poultry flavor that most chicken no longer has. My old friend is the salad of roasted peppers, buffalo mozzarella, capers and anchovies -- premium ingredients that make the case for an unusual collusion of flavors.

Most of the dishes hold up from year to year, though I now find that the scallop appetizer with white beans and wilted arugula in saffron broth is a gourmet bore. The vitello tonnato -- an odd though classic pairing of cold veal slices and creamy tuna sauce -- is too sharp with vinegar. And I'm personally over the chocolate soup dessert with hazelnuts and croutons, though I still introduce it to friends and they fall for it as I once did.

Maybe, maybe I'm a little over the room, too. In 1999, the combination of pockmarked plaster walls, Euro-design tableware and an open kitchen seemed the very picture of intown cool. I love the fact that the gross hot-new-restaurant crowd has blown off. (They're all at Twist, playing Tokyo subway.)

But now I want both edge and creature comforts from Sotto Sotto. I want to walk in and see an upgrade, a recommitment. Something special that tells me things are only getting better at the city's best Italian restaurant.