The Gossiping Gourmet:

If you haven’t already heard about David Myers’ Pizzeria Ortica in Costa Mesa, you probably haven’t been paying attention because it’s been written up everywhere. The consensus is that the pizza’s just dandy, but short shrift has been given to the rest of the menu.

We’d like to rectify that omission and commend chef Steve Samson for putting out some authentic Italian dishes, using good ingredients and letting them shine. The result is clean, simple and tasty food.

This location has been home to several other Italian restaurants, and the long, narrow space with a white tiled open kitchen, lots of marble and dark wood plus an extremely high-ceilinged room replete with arches makes you feel like you are sitting under a colonnade facing the piazza in Milano.

Determined not to order pizza on this visit, even though it looked terrific coming out of the wood-burning oven directly across from our table, we tried some of everything else.

Our starter was an unusual smoked black cod bread salad. The delicately smoked fish mingling with chunks of bread was suffused with a light lemon dressing and just a modicum of very finely minced red onion, cucumber and parsley. The effect was very pleasant with a subtle smoky undertone.

From the salads, we chose the roasted vegetables with burrata cheese (which is made from mozzarella scraps and cream, dipped in hot whey or brine to develop its unique flavor and then kneaded for texture).

The luxurious creamy cheese was a perfect pairing with the vegetables. Sweet red and yellow bells, and cippollini onions contrasted with the slightly spicy, slightly bitter shishito peppers while zucchini ribbons rounded out the dish.

Tortelli is round, rather than square, ravioli. This house-made pasta is filled with a pear and pecorino cheese mixture. The filling is almost a purée and has a lovely hint of natural fruity sweetness.

The pasta was soft with al dente edges, and as you bit into it the creamy filling oozed into your mouth. Adding another dimension of flavor was the brown butter sauce with a soupçon of sage.

We loved the fact that the pasta was served with little bowls of grated Parmesan cheese and crushed red pepper, so you could finish the dish to your taste.

Nothing is more classically Italian than grilled chicken under a brick.

Flattening the chicken helps it to cook evenly, and in this case, both breast and thigh were perfectly done, moist and juicy with very crispy skin.

The chicken was lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, which was all that was needed. It came with strips of sweet roasted peppers and a little salad of spicy arugula.

Samson uses Jidori chicken, another new buzzword that refers to chicken that was originally a Japanese breed, all natural and free range, particularly distinguished by the fact that it is processed and delivered within 24 hours and never frozen.

Dessert was our only disappointment. It was called a chocolate tart, which was a misnomer, as it had no crust.

Rather, it was a wedge of dark chocolate fudge, very good fudge, a chocolate lover’s dream, but it was not what we expected.

It was more like candy than a pastry dessert. Instead of vanilla gelato, we ordered pistachio, but it wasn’t creamy or fresh tasting and had almost no pistachio flavor.

If you’ve never tasted the pizzas, they are thin-crusted with a puffed edge, blackened in spots from the wood-burning oven and range from the simplest cheese-free Marinara with crushed tomatoes, shaved garlic and oregano to the Milanesa with asparagus, fontina, Parmesan and fried egg or the Guanciale, ricotta e cipollotto with fresh ricotta, house cured pork cheek (guanciale), scallions and fennel pollen.

Although the pizzas here are hard to resist, do yourself a favor and try some of the other delicious offerings as well.

Pizzeria Ortica

What: Pizzeria Ortica, (714) 445-4900, www.pizzeriaortica.com

Where: 650 Anton Blvd, Costa Mesa

When:

Lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays

Pizza only: 2 to 5 p.m. weekdays

Dinner: 5 to 10 p.m. weekdays; 5 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Prices:

Appetizers: $10 to $16

Pizzas: $11 to $18

Pastas: $9 to $16

Entrées: $17 to $25

Desserts: $5 to $7

Wine:

Bottles: $30 to $170

By the glass: $8 to $20

Corkage Fee: $20

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ owned A La Carte for 20 years and can be reached at [email protected] .