The Gaslamp’s ever-expanding arena of Italian restaurants has made way for Operacaffe, a tasty venture launched recently by Chef Roberto Bernardoni and his wife Patrizia Branchi.

The couple’s native Florence is proudly represented by that city’s emblem stenciled on the walls, menus and chef jackets, a reassuring sign that the “caffé” isn’t one of those knock-off Tuscan kitchens that have long riddled these touristy lanes.

Green-tinted olive oil used for bread dipping leads into meals incorporating mellow, aged cheeses and market-fresh ingredients. Indeed, this is the real deal that garners extra applause if you pass the finishing line to the restaurant’s classic, low-sugar desserts.

Florentine cuisine is hardly mysterious. Simplicity and improvisation win over the quest for sophistication. Recipes are constantly redefined according to local bounties, resulting in a mixing up of herbs and natural ingredients, with cured meats, braised fish and pasta found often at the core of most dishes.

Where pizza is involved, the Operacaffe further adheres to its culinary mores. Expect plain, lightly salted, well-baked crust that is perfectly chewy and topped with little or no red sauce and thin deposits of mozzarella. A vegetarian pizza that my companion chose paid tribute to the peasanty origins of Tuscan cooking. It featured a hodge-podge of eggplant, peppers, zucchini and asparagus stamped with a strong grilled finish. Come back tomorrow, and the veggies could likely change. And so might the actual lineup of starters and desserts, if you compare the in-house menu to that on the restaurant’s visually stunning Web site (www.operacaffe.com).

Minestrone soup, for instance, appears only on paper and shouldn’t be overlooked. The tomato-less vegetable broth is thickened by white beans and potatoes while allowing all of the other ingredients to speak – right down to the tiny diced carrots, cubed zucchini and leafy green stuff floating about. It’s refreshingly authentic and off-the-charts good. As for the confections, it’s best to rely on what you see sitting in the display case, as there are things like fabulous rolled almond cake and tall-standing pastries that sometimes whimsically emerge among the standbys (tiramisu, ricotta cake, chocolate shortbread, etc.).

Perusing the appetizer list, we opted for la piramide, a stack of sliced polenta layered rustically with ham and porcini mushrooms. It’s a dish that should be eaten fast because the polenta soon turns mushy from smooth gorgonzola sauce seeping through. Another starter is deep-fried rice balls held together by mozzarella cheese, which we couldn’t taste or feel in our mouths. My companion liked them nonetheless while I showed favoritism toward a different appetizer of sautéed champignon and oyster mushrooms dressed in garlic, parsley and balsamic vinaigrette.

Leave it to the Italians for pepping up sauces with snappy-tasting bay leaves, as evidenced by an entrée of halibut braised in a semi-thick liquid of white wine and butter. Leeks and celery added structure, although the only problem was that the fish was overcooked by a long minute or two, a common blunder with halibut.

Mascarpone cheese and mint were the ingredients that lured me into ordering a pasta dish called penne speperina, which also includes “spicy” sausage. But the meal was over-simplified, failing to deliver the cool breeze of mint or the feisty heat from the sausage. The dish’s redeeming qualities surfaced in a reheat the following day, after the al dante penne had a chance to soak up the oils from the meat and cheese. It still wasn’t minty or spicy, but more alluring the second time around.

A short wine list features mostly Italian labels, including an affordable food-friendly Supertuscan by the glass and a medium-bodied La Moto Chianti. Service was efficient, albeit a tad ingratiating by a waiter whose approach was to over-accommodate precious customers on this slow evening.

Operacaffe’s atmosphere is warm and homey, brightly lit, and large enough to constitute it as a full-fledged restaurant. The cuisine is reasonably priced with few surprises or complications – exactly how the Tuscans like to eat.