Mike Dunne
Bee Restaurant Critic

In recent months, calls and e-mails have urged that I take another look at two Sacramento restaurants that opened to to much fanfare in 2003 but were suffering jitters when I reviewed them last summer.

So we returned to Lucca Restaurant & Bar and Chops Steak & Bar.

Lucca Restaurant & Bar

Its another warm evening in the heart of the city, and the usual crowd of people is milling about the front of bright and pulsating Lucca.

We're at a front table, next to a large opening onto the sidewalk. A fire engine approaches from the west, siren wailing, lights flashing. Heads turn from the plates, looking for the emergency.

There's no emergency at Lucca these days. The place is as busy as it was a year ago, and the consistency of both the service and the food has improved greatly. The restaurant remains cool in its looks and feel, and the staff has found a groove and it's riding fresh with confidence.

And Lucca has acquired a couple of new fans lately, witness report – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver. The vary their orders, which run to low-carb eating, but he invariably calls for a plate of the fried zucchini chips ($3.95).

We do to. their hot, thin, crispy saltiness is as addictive as ever, and our order this night isn't nearly as oily as it has been in the past. To your health, governor.

While the chips were more liberally salted than the “lightly salted” description of the menu, the kitchen has brought under the control the aggressive salting that marred some dishes last year. This was especially so with one of Executive Chef Gene Moana's signature entrees, the confit duck cassoulet (&12.95), an invigorating and harmonious medley of lean meaty duck leg, rich duck sausage, sweet petite onions, roasted tomatoes and perfectly al dente beans.

A thick center-cut New York steak – at $23.95 by far the most expensive dish in the place – also had been salted just right, enough to heighten but not to distract from the rich beefy flavor. (only a few dishes have prices increased slightly in the past year, and most entrees remain in the $10 to $15 range.)

The menu has been expanded, but its still manageable and it still represents with an exuberant and graceful simplicity the fresh and sunny cooking of southern France, Italy and other Mediterranean cultures.

One of the new additions, perfect for summer, is a salad of three varieties of thick-cut tomato, layered with finely textured, cleanly flavored housemade mozzarella, perfect for accommodating the superb olive oil with which it is drizzled ($8.95). Moana substitutes the leaves of peppery arugula for the basil that customarily helps form “la caprese,” the original Italian version of this popular salad, but the change is perfectly fitting, bringing another kind of snap to the composition.

All to often at restaurants, pasta arrives at the table much cooler then they should, but the one we tried at Lucca was refreshingly hot. It was a vivid and carefully balanced toss of penne with roasted tomatoes , green olive, chili flakes and capers, all topped with a gently contrasting sprinkle of “pangriata,” or seasoned bread crumbs.

Lucca's opening pastry chef, Shaun Nelson, has left the restaurant to study art in San Francisco, but Moana and the other members of his crew fill the void with such carryovers from the Nelson era ass the seasonal fruit crisp ($5.95) and the molten chocolate cake ($5.95). We went with two large and homey specials, however, a traditional and pretty strawberry shortcake that would have benefited from a bit more fruit ($5.95), and a glorious lemon Napoleon tangy with curd, crackly with toasty sheets of pastry and sweet sweet with whipped cream and amarene, slightly bitter Italian cherries preserved in a heavy syrup ($6.50).

With its big, bold and whimsical art, its spacious new patio and its appreciation of the sturdy, practical lines of a historic brick building, Lucca is one of Sacramento's more sensitively rehabbed restaurants, providing a setting animated and convivial.

Service was initially jerky in attention and slow in pacing has been sharpened, and couldn't have been more congenial and focused during our most recent visit.

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