By Paul Reidinger

ALTHOUGH ITALIAN COOKING does have its high end, it's usually the mama-style stuff most of us think of – and crave – when we think about Italian food. Mama, unless she's a very grande dame indeed, probably doesn't have regular access to truffles, lobster, and caviar; she makes do instead with such prosaic staples as eggplant, veal, prawns, and pasta. And she does surprisingly little to any of them. The secret to traditional, rustic Italian food is that there's really no secret: some minced garlic here, a splash of balsamic vinegar there, and voilà!, er, ecco!

The ultimate spell cast by mama-style Italian food is the sense that each dish has been made just for you, one at a time, without much regard to cost or time. Since cost and time are two of any restaurant's most basic variables, mama cuisine's translation to the realm of restaurants and commerce, its ability to swaddle us in the maternal enchantment, is not without its issues. Each of us, doubtless, has some trattoria we love for its warmth and authenticity, even if there is no actual mama on the premises; but each of us too has most likely eaten restaurant ravioli we suspect of having come from a can, or a plate of veal saltimbocca we believe was probably thrown together with industrially prepared tomato sauce or pre-grated cheese.

Bacio, a tiny trattoria with terra cotta-dabbed walls, forest green taverna chairs, and benignly gazing statues of cherubs, gives us the paradox of the mama-style Italian restaurant in as sharp a form as we are likely to see. The food is sublimely earthy, well seasoned, and presented with care but not fuss. It tastes all the better for being so eagerly – or is that interminably? – awaited. Although Bacio's dining room is tiny, with fewer than a dozen tables, we noticed only one server on a succession of visits: a lone figure charged with taking orders, bringing bread and water, serving food, clearing away dishes, and dealing with payment. Mothers are famous for their resilience in dealing with the multiple crises and incessant demands caused by children, but even the toughest mother might find herself stretched in dealing with 15 or 20 expectant diners at various stages of the evening meal.

Some of the service issues might have to do with newness, others with location. Bacio opened in September in a lower Nob Hill space adjoining the Nob Hill Hotel. The hotel is both advantage and disadvantage; it provides a core clientele (important for the survival of any restaurant) but also encourages the trading of precision for convenience. Hotel restaurants can be excellent (indigenous examples include XYZ and Postrio), but the ones that are have successfully fought the temptation to rely too heavily on a captive patronage. They reach out – to destination diners, to neighbors.

Destination diners and neighbors alike will be satisfied with such dishes as Bacio's lasagna ($12.95), an oblong crock layered with pasta ribbons, ricotta, herbed tomato sauce, and some combination of ground meat that definitely includes veal, with its elegant lightness of texture. Eggplant Parmesan ($12.95) is quite similar in appearance and flavor profile and is also available with a meatless marinara sauce.

In fact the menu from top to bottom is laden with carefully executed classics, from bruschetta ($6.50), topped with tomatoes, basil, and Romano cheese, to a creamy minestrone ($4.50), choked with chunks of leek, potato, tomato, and zucchini, to fat spinach ravioli ($12.95), stuffed with pine nuts, walnuts, and ricotta and bathed in a garlic-Parmesan cream sauce. Along the way there are a few striking flourishes: a green bean salad ($6.95), say, bejeweled with coins of golden beet and given a salty bite by cubes of feta cheese; and a plate of tenderly deep-fried calamari ($8.95), served with Caesar sauce (which typically combines the flavors of Tabasco, anchovy, garlic, and bacon). There is even a surprising near dud; that would be the veal saltimbocca ($16.95), a preparation that involves mozzarella, sage, and prosciutto – and, apparently because of the last, a danger of oversalting. It is almost unheard-of, in my experience, to be served an oversalted dish in a restaurant, but Bacio's veal saltimbocca reminded me that it can happen.

There is nothing inherently wrong in service that is not lightning-fast, and it can't be a bad thing for Americans to be made aware that much of the rest of the world doesn't place the same value on rushing through meals that we do. Even simple food should be savored, after all, not wolfed. But. It strikes me as poor form not to bring at least bread and water to the table, along with menus, within a few minutes of seating a party. This should be a deep and automatic reflex, like breathing; it should happen regardless of the level of traffic and stress, and if it doesn't, management better have a rethink about procedures and resource allocation. One does not even particularly crave bread, with its associations of people starving in dungeons, waiting piteously for their daily bit of crust to be flung to them through the grate; let it be fried chickpeas – something, anything nibblable, a clue that things have been set in motion and the dinner ball is rolling, however slowly. Not to do this is a small but definite, defining, botch.

Bacio. 835 Hyde (at Sutter), S.F. (415) 292-7999. Lunch: Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Dinner: nightly, 5-10 p.m. Beer and wine. American Express, MasterCard, Visa. Not noisy. Wheelchair accessible.