CALL IT ITALIAN COMFORT FOOD.

Byline: Larry Lipson Restaurant Critic

Sometimes the tried and true works better than the imaginative and creative.

That's the situation at the comparatively new Verdi Ristorante in Woodland Hills, which replaced the closed Capri earlier this year.

Verdi, with a capable team of cooking and serving partner-owners possessing numerous years of professional experience between them, have obviously decided to stick with familiar, safe Italian-style food, the kind that Americans have known and loved for at least two generations.

How can we ever forget those chicken and veal dishes?: Usually ``piccata''-style of smallish slices, inevitably with the appendages ``marsala,'' ``fiorentina,'' ``vesuvio,'' ``milanese'' and ``limone.''

Or the always-present minestrone, the pasta ``fazool'' that we eventually found out was really pasta e fagioli soup and the ``little rags'' egg drop soup called stracciatella.

And once we graduated from the Italian dish of spaghetti and meatballs, we found pastas like fettuccine Alfredo, spaghetti puttanesca, penne arrabiata and capellini checca.

Verdi has all of these.

Of course, if a new restaurant wants to encourage regular visits from the initial spate of curious localites, it's wise to offer a number of additional items, simply to alleviate boredom.

Verdi accomplishes this with such nightly specials as a shrimp salad, a whitefish dish, a salmon plate, prawns in cognac sauce, rack of lamb and veal chop.

Its kitchen doesn't try to do anything overly fancy in terms of presentation. It basically sticks to fair-size plates of medium portioning, certainly not overcrowded with food.

Its carpaccio starter ($4.95 at lunch, $6.95 at dinner) is about as good as you'll find anywhere, especially at such a reasonable price, prepared simply in the traditional way with very thinly sliced, decent quality, raw filet mignon, piquant with lemon juice and capers flavoring, topped with just the right amount of Parmesan.

Calamari fritti ($4.95 at lunch, $5.95 at dinner) also shows integrity in preparation, made with chewable squid pieces coated with light, almost white, fluffy batter. The whiteness indicates, of course, that the oil being used is fresh and new. When the fried calamari is brown, it usually means that the oil is old and being used over and over.

Another bargain is the Caesar salad ($2.95 at lunch, $5.50 or $9 for two at dinner), a well-executed version, especially worthwhile as part of the $1 salad or soup option available with each entree.

Steamed clams ($6.95), perhaps half a dozen of them per serving and cooked properly, provide a shareable appetizer, though I've noticed much larger servings at other restaurants lately.

Veal with lemon and mushrooms ($14.95) and chicken marsala ($11.95) are preferred here over the pollo vesuvio ($11.95) dish, the latter seeming a trifle bland one night even though it's made with garlic, potatoes, mushrooms, onions and white wine.

Pastas range from passable to perfect. Verdi's least complex offering, linguini with olive oil and garlic ($7.95), illustrates the experience and skill of the kitchen staff, producing noodles cooked to the precise spot between too mushy and too firm (al dente), along with exactly the right amount of garlic and without any odd olive oil flavors or too much of it.

As a second pasta choice, and one that would be considered more substantial, rigatoni with sausage, eggplant, tomato and mozzarella ($10.95) receives a nod of approval.

In the beef category, Verdi scores high marks with its juicy, tender filet mignon steak boosted with a green peppercorn sauce ($17.95), but disappoints with a sliced steak ``tagliata'' dish ($16.95) which, though the olive oil, garlic and herb preparation gave each slice gratifying flavor, most of them were tough.

Desserts by Edie - a white chocolate bombe and a neatly constructed apple tart - are excellent. Also, there are some moderately priced wines on the 40-label list, actually as lowC as $15. And even though the list indicates an $8.50 corkage fee, only $3 was charged on two occasions.

Which points out how much Verdi wants to please its customers.

The restaurant: Verdi Ristorante.

Where: 21926 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills.

When: Open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, for dinner from 5:30 to 11 p.m. nightly.

Recommended items: Soups, calamari fritti, carpaccio di manzo, linguine aglio olio, pollo marsala, veal alla limone, filet mignon, white chocolate bombe, apple tart.

How much: Starters from $1 to $10, pastas and entrees from $8 to $18, desserts from $4.50 to $8. Beer and wine. AE, MC, V.

Wine list: Corkage: $3 per bottle.

Reservations: Helpful. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three stars for food; three stars for service; three stars for wine.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO Co-owners Lamberto Valdez, left, and James Hurst have created a menu with all the Italian favorites at their Verdi Ristorante.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer