Smith's.(Restaurant review)

Occupying a space between Caffe Dante and the New York Rifle Club that formerly housed a halfhearted Italian trattoria, Smith's successfully, if slightly self-consciously, presents itself as a cozy little discovery. The central room--a narrow railroad-car space, painted cream, lined with black banquettes, and boasting a ceiling panelled with slightly foxed antique mirrors--feels both intimate and dramatic; it's only when the place is very busy that you realize that it's essentially a corridor leading straight from the kitchen.

The menu combines some new-American gestures (cue mentions of sunchokes, the Hudson Valley, and things being "line-caught") with a style that is basically Italian: dishes include homemade corzetti (a coin-shaped pasta from Genoa) and a steamed egg with Gorgonzola-tinged polenta, which achieves a satisfying fusion of posset-like smoothness and cheesy tang. The chef, Pablo Romero, subtly enlivens well-worn favorites; roasted beets come with a horseradish cream that provides the very gentlest of kicks. Indeed, accompaniments sometimes outshine main dishes. Recently, the dryness of a filet of striped bass was soon forgotten thanks to ...