Ristorante row

With so many new Italian restaurants joining the ones already in place, Brentwood is fast becoming Little Italy on the Westside. I guess you can never have too many neighborhood Italians. At least in this neighborhood.

Now Agostino Sciandri, onetime chef and partner in Toscana and the Rosti chain of rosticceria takeouts, has taken the old Barrington Avenue Rosti and retooled it into Sor Tino. It’s a casual Italian spot, sort of a lower-priced version of Ago, the West Hollywood restaurant where he now presides. With seating both indoors and out, it’s not exactly a hole in the wall. And with Sciandri’s huge fan base to support it, the ristorante has no problem filling the tables, just days after it opened.

The walls are ochre, the sconces bubbly designer glass. A wood-burning oven turns out thin-crust pizzas and hefty bisteccas, and a huge blackboard lists the specials for those who can’t wait for the waiter to tell them.

That would be about a microsecond because, as at Toscana and Ago, service here is seriously snappy. The food comes out almost too fast, the better to keep those tables turning -- or, more generously, to allow guests to get out in time for their movie or favorite TV show.

Though the menu describes the food as cucina tradizionale Fiorentina, the food is really yet another compendium of L.A.’s top (and oh, so familiar) dishes. That’s partly because Sciandri was one of the first Italian chefs in Los Angeles to cook Northern Italian. Now, years later, that has come to mean raw artichoke salad drenched in lemon, classic beef carpaccio, burrata with tomato and basil, fried calamari (at Sor Tino it also includes artichoke quarters), pizzas Margherita and Napoli, wild mushroom risotto and free-range chicken.

Curiously, the bistecca is not beef but pork, cut open like a book and stuffed with molten fontina cheese and spinach. Rack of lamb is finished off in the wood-burning oven too and served with rosemary potatoes. There’s a rib-eye roasted in the oven, and a tagliata (sliced beefsteak) with an olive dressing. For dessert, of course, there’s tiramisu, sorbets and dark chocolate tart, all house made.

Open from 11:30 a.m. daily, Sor Tino offers a haven for Italophiles in search of Italian food and ambience -- or a place to practice their Italian -- all day long.

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Sor Tino Ristorante

Where: 98 S. Barrington Ave., Brentwood

When: 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. daily. Beer and wine. Valet parking.

Cost: Antipasti and salads, $7 to $14; pizzas, $10 to $13; pastas and risottos, $11 to $15; meat and fish, $17 to $24; desserts, $6.

Info: (310) 442-8466