Mazzi CuciNA

Byline: Larry Lipson Daily News Restaurant Critic 

There's always a tendency to yawn these days when a new Italian restaurant opens. 

Names like arugula, radicchio, porcini and portobello just don't stir the soul or palate anymore. 

But chef Stefano Lucio Mazzi is this season's culinary Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa rolled into one. He's hit more home run dishes out of his new Denari, Encino, restaurant kitchen than any Ventura Boulevard chef since Neil Rogers of Cafe Bizou. 

The ``wows'' start the minute his plates are brought to the table. 

And that's after the usual breads - very good - and olive oil dipping thing and a tapenade-type olive mixture for spreading gets you going. 

Mazzi's main inspiration comes from his northwestern Italian birthplace, La Spezia, and from what he learned at La Strega Culinary Academy near Lake Como and later from local chefs Celestino Drago and Tommaso Barletta. He produces dazzlingly dramatic food presentations in whopping white bowls and plates, certainly rivaling the best artistic efforts in these parts. 

Even with a fine presentation, there's still that question of taste, of texture, of flavors strong or subtle, of balance and harmony, of the actual choice and subsequent orchestration of ingredients. 

By using smoked Black Forest ham, Oregon sweet onions, an organic tomato sauce and a touch of chile pepper zing with perfectly cooked penne ($9.50), Mazzi makes one of the city's best pastas priced under $10. And it's no small portion. 

He also effectively fashions a doozy of a dish of smoky gnocchi ($8.95 or $11.95) with oyster mushrooms, artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes with a hint of truffle oil. And he adds the synchronous wonder of caramelized garlic's sweetness and pungency to spaghetti for a super-simple satisfaction ($7.50 or $10.50) utilizing good quality olive oil and a sprinkling of Tuscan bread crumbs. 

And his Denari (which means ``money'' in Italian) kitchen bends admirably to customer quirks. 

One diner ordered the stone-roasted free-range half chicken ($12.45), regularly paired with vegetables and mashed potatoes, this time requested without the veggies. A cold-hearted, unchallenged chef would have just left them off the plate. 

But Mazzi sends out a grandiose arrangement of the chicken in a copper crucible surrounded by three types of potato, one being the original mashed, all in a jumbo sparkling white bowl. Together with its rosemary and garlic brushing, the result is an immense hit both in taste and presentation - indeed, a prodigious home run. 

He cooks up excellent soups ($3.50), but it's his starter dishes that bring on the oohs and aahs. They're like brilliant first acts of Tony-winning, three-act plays. 

His portobello strips ($6.75) come up aesthetically arranged with yellow roasted peppers and sweet organic tomatoes, providing a lush-toned, piquant treat of an appetizer that is boosted with drops of a 50 year-old balsamic vinegar. 

Mazzi creates the nattiest napoleon around ($7.50) with a layered marvel built with puff pastry, maple-smoked Scottish salmon, goat cheese, salmon egg caviar, daikon sprouts and chive oil. 

And his version of carpaccio ($7.50) arrives as a picture-perfect triumph of paper-thin filet mignon flavored with a squirt or two of lemon juice, nicely dry flakes of Reggiano cheese and those big Sicilian capers still on their stalks. 

An ordinary mesclun salad of Canyon Farm greens ($9.95) becomes a cooking magazine cover in Mazzi's hands when he adds black-eyed beans, sprouts and blanched raisins to the mix with rosemary-flavored salmon. 

He makes a beef rollatine entree ($13.45) that doesn't quite match some of his other efforts, fine in taste from its stuffing of roasted peppers, garlic and smoked pancetta, but a tad lacking in texture and moisture. 

Desserts ($5), including the ubiquitous tiramisu and a lilting orange-accented creation, are tops and the service is remarkably well-tuned considering the newness of the restaurant. 

I chuckled at the remark one night by our gregarious, knowledgeable American waiter who uttered in his best Italian, ``Molte bene ... and Jack Benny.'' 

He might have also said, ``Show me the denari.'' 

One liners and memorably presented, good food in an engaging, semi-casual setting.