The Luci Show

NEWPORT BEACH — Twenty years ago, Luci Luhan started a cooking school and catering business that blossomed into an Italian restaurant. The bar at What’s Cooking also blossomed in its own right; Luhan likes to call it a Newport Beach version of Cheers.

Back then, What’s Cooking was way out in the sticks, but San Joaquin Hills has grown up around it. The neighborhood has become a typical upscale suburb complete with gated communities, a freeway and even the occasional traffic jam. All this must have been unimaginable back when this area was just an empty expanse of rolling grassland.

In the meantime, Luhan has moved to the Italian town of Monte Vetolini in the Tuscan countryside, 40 miles west of Florence. There she is fulfilling a dream. She has converted an old farmhouse into a bed and breakfast, where she presses her own olive oil. And once again she is running a cooking school, which attracts a clientele from far and wide.

What’s Cooking sorely misses her, but her presence is evident. Her sons, Jason and Jorge, run the place. The walls are filled with Luci Luhan memorabilia, mostly photos of her with friends who have dined with her over the years. You can pick out James Beard, Placido Domingo and Alan Young (the human star of the “Mr. Ed” TV series). She checks in at What’s Cooking a couple of times a year to make sure things are going right.

The restaurant’s cozy ambience remains unchanged. This is a busy place with a display kitchen, three small dining rooms and a U-shaped bar well suited to drinking, dining and all-around revelry. One dining room has green vinyl banquettes with upholstered backing; another is a three-table area inside an all-glass enclosure. There is plenty of hand-painted Italian pottery on display. The kitchen counter is piled with copper pots, ceramic jars, biscotti, boxed panettone and bottles of herbed olive oil.

If this sounds like fun, it is. The last evening I spent here, the restaurant was hopping. A small group was partying in the front dining room; businessmen were nibbling on spinach salads at the bar, and a never-ending succession of tall, slender blond women passed my table on the way to powder their noses.

Eventually one of the Italian waitresses came by our table to ply us with a strange green puree of vegetables that we were instructed to smear on rectangles of puffy focaccia. We didn’t bother; the bread tasted fine by itself, or with a touch of the herbed olive oil and aceto balsamico already sitting on the table.

We soon received the extensive menu. The pizzas dal forno are baked in a wood-fired oven and are generally quite reliable. These are the cracker-crusted pizzas popular in Tuscany, and the only thing that keeps them from being flat-out terrific is the excessive toppings.

The best choice is the simple, restrained pizza Margherita, with nothing on it but good tomato sauce and some mozzarella. But pizza al tonno has what must be an entire can of oily tuna on top. Pizza alla Greca is a palate-twisting pie topped with grilled eggplant, sweet onions, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes.

The antipasti and salads have their moments too. Carpaccio di bue (that’s plain old beef carpaccio) is a plate covered by thin slices of delicious raw beef garnished with shaved Parmesan, though it lacks the capers, olive oil or arugula without which, in my view, the dish seems a bit naked. Fine, fat grilled portabello mushrooms come with grilled asparagus. Gamberi Romagnola is one huge grilled Hawaiian tiger prawn on romaine lettuce that’s been baked with a delicate balsamic vinegar reduction.

When Luhan started What’s Cooking, she made all her pastas on the premises. That is no longer the case, but the kitchen still makes its own gnocchi, tortellini and ravioli. Gnocchi al filo are light potato dumplings topped with a little too much scamorza, that overpowering smoked mozzarella cheese. The tortellini di ricotta are better with a light tomato sauce rather than the optional cream sauce (it makes the pasta unbearably rich). Ravioli di fagiano are stuffed with minced pheasant and come in a butter, sage and truffle sauce, but I must say mine were mushy.

Most of the menu is familiar: lasagna verde, rigatoni Bolognese, a nice risotto with porcini mushrooms and lobster tail.

Less familiar dishes include timballo (a drum-shaped casing of pasta filled with carrots, mushrooms and assorted meats) and duetto di scoglio, linguine paired with one of those huge Hawaiian prawns and some Manila clams in a white wine sauce.

Among the dozen or so meat entrees, the best is a simple roast chicken (pollo arrosto), the least appealing the tough veal Marsala in an excessively sweet sauce.

Save room for dessert. The good selection includes a cloud-light ricotta cheese tart and one of O.C.’s best versions of tiramisu, that ubiquitous cake of ladyfinger and mascarpone cream.

Have a good time. Or for a better time yet, go to Tuscany and find Luhan. She will personally teach you how to make your own tiramisu and to press fresh olive oil.

What’s Cooking is moderately priced. Pizzas are $6.95 to $9.95. Antipasti and salads are $3.95 to $6.95. Pastas are $7.95 to $14.95. Secondi are $12.95 to $16.95.

WHAT’S COOKING

* 2632 San Miguel Drive, Newport Beach.

* (714) 644-1820.

* 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, 5-10 p.m. Saturday and 5-9:30 p.m. Sunday.

* All major cards.