By David Nelson
SDUN Restaurant Critic

For a good many locals and visitors, Old Town at one time was defined by the brilliantly colored boundaries of Bazaar del Mundo, now Plaza de Reyes, which in fact is within the confines of Old Town State Park. The neighborhood is much larger, however, and supports assorted hives of activity along its narrow, car-lined streets. Gift shops and restaurants are just about everywhere, and the trick isn’t finding somewhere to eat, but finding somewhere really good at which to part with your dining-out dollars.

You’re more likely to find the new 25Forty Bistro & Bakehouse on foot than by car, since this unassuming place doesn’t shout out its presence with big signs and banners. A find it unquestionably is, since 25Forty – the name is taken from its address on Congress Street – offers perhaps the most authentic, most expertly prepared Italian fare in this high-profile corner of San Diego. Chef/proprietor Mark Pelliccia, a man who has labored much to become a master of his craft, but not at all to promote himself, turns out lovely dishes in a comfortable setting staffed by young Italian women who serve with smiles and confidence.

In 1985, the Pelliccia family – Mark was then 10 – moved to San Diego from New York, and Luigi Pelliccia opened the long-popular Luigi’s near Belmont Park in Mission Beach. Mark, whose cooking you may well have savored during the first couple of years of Solare, the stylish Italian in Liberty Station, decided to go into the family trade via formal training. In 1993, he enrolled in a six-year program at a government-operated cooking and hotel management school in Turin, Italy, which he followed with a one-year stint at the L’Etoile pastry school in Chioggia, near Venice. He then commenced working and “getting experience,” as he says, in Italy, spending four years in Elba, Turin, Venice and Sertriere, before working another four years as chef of the prestigious casino in San Remo.

“My Italian is probably better than my English,” says Pelliccia, whose English is as flawless as his gnocchi in Gorgonzola sauce. In 2007, he returned to San Diego to take the chef’s position at Solare.

Pelliccia opened 25Forty in February and says the place is doing well.

It should be. Fifteen years’ experience in Italy makes the 35-year-old a formidable expert at cooking Italian food the real way, which can be vastly different from the kind of fare typically offered in San Diego. Fortunately, there are plenty of patrons ready and willing to taste dishes like the magnificent agnolotti (tiny round ravioli in a sumptuous, gravy-like sauce) he prepared at Solare, and promises to offer soon at 25Forty.

“We’re here doing everything fresh and made from scratch,” says the roughly bearded chef. “Nothing is frozen, and I buy all local produce. I’m trying my hardest to put out the best quality food.”

The effort shows consistently. The relatively brief menus are expanded at every meal by numerous specials, just as in Italy, where the market frequently determines the menu. At one recent dinner, the blackboard listed virtually impossible-to-find-elsewhere offerings like breaded zucchini flan with arugula, and beef tonnato, a variant on the vitello tonnato that so engaged foodies during the American culinary explosion of the 1970s. Designed as a warm-weather appetizer, the dish calls for thin slices of poached or gently roasted veal or beef (a beef eye-round roast, which Pelliccia uses, gives solid slices without fat) to be doused with a creamy mayonnaise. The distinguishing factors are the canned tuna beaten into the sauce (you might not guess this ingredient, because the flavor is mild), and the piquant capers that bring bite to the presentation.

Specials are priced on a daily basis, but generally speaking, pastas are $13 at night (and usually a dollar less at lunch), while entrees cost $16. An unusual menu category called “snacks” offers delightful $3 plates of assorted olives, raw vegetables with tart, Greek tzatziki sauce, and pissaladiere, a pizza-like French-Italian specialty that Pelliccia may well have encountered when he worked in San Remo. In his version, a light, crisp but relatively thick crust is decorated with tomatoes and sharp seasonings, but (gratefully) avoids the anchovies that usually lattice the crust in Nice, where it supposedly was born. It makes a nice shared prelude to the beef tonnato, or perhaps to the day’s soup ($4), which may be a stylish mushroom purée enriched at serving time with sautéed quartered mushrooms that Pelliccia pours sizzling into the bowls of soup just as they depart for the table. This is the sort of touch that makes a good dish memorable, and given the modest price tag, underscores the value typical at 25Forty.

Pelliccia prides himself on several unusual specialties, including eggplant parmigiana ravioli, or thin rounds of pasta stuffed with sautéed eggplant and cheese, and doused in a fresh tomato sauce. It’s memorable, but no more so than the silken pillows of dough rolled into rough almond shapes to make exquisite gnocchi, which the chef tosses with an equally silky Gorgonzola sauce. Homemade fettuccine crowned with robust pork ragu is a third winning pasta. Formal entrées are few, but include pork chops with Fuji apples and sautéed spinach, and seared chicken with a salad of fresh vegetables.

Pelliccia’s formal training as a pastry chef shows with delightful, vanilla-custard-stuffed crepes finished with a distinctive sauce of brown sugar and Grand Marnier, and the smoothest imaginable ice cream topped with berries (all desserts $5). There are pastries, too – it’s all good at 25Forty. As of this writing, Pelliccia was expecting a beer-and-wine license to arrive shortly.

25Forty Bistro & Bakehouse
2540 Congress St.
Old Town
294-2540
25fortybistro.com
Open for lunch daily; dinner Thursday-Saturday only