Brunch, Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; dinner, Tue.-Thu., 5-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m., Sun5-9 p.m.

Wheelchair accessible to dining room. No smoking. Reservations recommended. All major credit cards.

For seven years, Brian Augustine has been working very hard. Aside from his regular labors as a custom builder, he has been renovating the space at 2321 Fairmount Ave. Now he’s done, and the product is an absolutely stunning new restaurant, Illuminare.

First, there's a small bar area with gold-and-olive striped banquettes. The slate floor leads up a few steps to the main dining room, which continues the gold-and-green theme in the fabric of the booths. Light floods the room from the raised, painted tin ceiling and from the glass wall that opens to a lovely private patio, fountain and all. The light is necessary, for the room is essentially Mission style, with natural mahogany woods, Stickley chairs and leaded Frank Lloyd Wright windows as a dado around the outside walls. Art deco fixtures hang from the beams that bisect the lofty ceiling, and flame-shaped standards light the booths.

The menu begins with a "Mission Statement: Maintain a clean, cozy atmosphere, provide courteous and knowledgeable service and use only fresh quality ingredients in our dishes, sauces and beverages. All items are prepared to order and can be modified to satisfy individual requests." This is true -- the basically Cal-Italia menu is fairly limited, but the ingredients are as fresh and of as good quality as promised, and the service from our waitress is thoughtful and swift.

Grey Goose martinis start us off, as we are still admiring our surroundings, agreeing that there is a very New York feel about the place. Then, roasted peppers and olives and fluffy snowflake rolls appear on the table. There are a few salads -- butter lettuce, candied walnuts, strawberries and Granny Smith apples. Too sweet for me. Baby spinach is a bit better with Gorgonzola, bacon, hazelnuts and pear, but I do prefer a classic Caesar salad, with crisp romaine and just the right amount of garlic, Parmesan Reggiano and anchovies, but this dish goes one better with peppery croutons and crostini smeared with olive paste.

The wine list is small and lists nothing over $70. Our Elk Grove Pinot Gris ($34) is a good, all-purpose bottle, and it goes well with all the varied tastes. Among appetizers, the usual mussels, steamed clams and antipasto appear, but we have a yen for fried calamari, and we have come to the right place. The rings of squid are as light and crisp as a cloud, with onion rings thrown in for good measure, and the spicy puttanesca sauce on the side does them justice.

How can we resist a pizza from the brick oven that we passed on the way in? We try something a little different -- a Sicilian pie, topped with pepperoni and prosciutto di Parma (the best kind). The crust is charred and crunchy, and cold cuts give an interesting spiciness and texture. Pepperoni is standard, but the prosciutto feels silky and luxurious in this context.

Pastas come in large white bowls that have become the norm these days. It's a very handsome presentation, but my fork keeps falling into the bowl when I pause. We try the house special -- a mix of jumbo lump crab and shrimp, shallots, asparagus tips, sun-dried tomatoes and lots of fresh basil with fusilli in a vodka-tomato-herb broth. It's quite a mouthful, and the seafood is fresh and sweet, but it lacks the robust frisson of the rigatoni tossed with Italian sausage and broccoli rabe. Perhaps it's unfair to contrast the meaty and bitter flavors of this pasta with the more sedate special, for we manage to finish them up both with aplomb. Each serving can easily serve two people.

Entrees look fairly standard -- chicken breasts, salmon, crab cakes, filet and veal chop -- but wait, the first soft-shell crabs of the season are in! We cannot resist, and we're rewarded with two huge batter-dipped crabs reclining on a bed of soy-flavored slivered vegetables. Alas, though they are full of sweet meat, the soy dressing has soaked into them and rendered them very soggy. I mention this as my only complaint to chef Shannon Garrity, a transplant from Seattle, who ruefully agrees. When next I dine there, I am confident that the case of the soggy soft-shell will have been solved.

I note that the service moves very smoothly as our plates are cleared and dessert is offered. We get the triple dessert -- a large sampling of tiramisu, flourless chocolate cake and a crème brlée. The tiramisu is moist, dense and not too sweet -- an excellent rendering of this staple. The flourless cake is also moist, but nothing unusual. The custard is presented in a stunning rectangle topped with spun sugar, but unfortunately it has a slightly grainy texture.

Everything lives up to the mission statement at the beginning of the menu -- everything is fresh and treated with respect. The prosciutto is from Parma, and the cheese is either Parmesan Reggiano or Pecorino Romano. The service is some of the best I've seen around town. Augustine can rest from his labors, while his handiwork illuminates the neighborhood.