I have a soft spot for Café Pompeii, because it’s where I had my first cappuccino. I’m still talking about it. Well, not continuously, but it was part of a long evening of conversation during which I shredded a matchbook and rearranged it in intricate patterns. At the time, decades ago, I thought it was a very exciting date. Unfortunately, the young woman who suggested Pompeii moved to New York City the following week. As an experienced cappuccino drinker, she kept pace and had a fine career there. I never met her again but did notice many of the same feelings returning with other people at Pompeii, and even at other North End espresso bars. Eventually, I figured out it must have been the cappuccino.

Recent owners of Café Pompeii decided to keep the long hours, but they’ve added a liquor license and real food. Although many North End restaurants don’t serve dessert, on the theory that you can walk to an espresso bar or bakery for that, Pompeii already was an espresso bar, so they offer dinner and dessert. That must be a great comfort after midnight, but I would need several old-school cappuccinos to make it that late.

What I can report is that during typical dinner hours, the bistro side of the present Pompeii is one of the better second-tier restaurants in the North End. By this I mean that it serves competent and delectable Italian-restaurant specialties, and does so with exceptionally late hours. It also does well on some newer dishes and has a respectable wine list. Still, it isn’t going to compete with Bricco, Carmen, Lucca, Mamma Maria, Mare, Pomodoro, Taranta, or the others in the top tier.

We start well with a dense, somewhat crusty white bread and slightly fruity (well, second-tier) extra-virgin olive oil for a dip. There’s also powdered Romano cheese to sprinkle on top. For standard appetizers, the fried calamari ($9.95) are very decently fried and come in a large portion, with a really good marinara sauce as a dip. Mozzarella sticks ($7.95) are rolled in bread crumbs so you get a crispy outside, a soft-and-melted inside, and more of the marinara for a dip. Caesar salad ($7.95; $11.95/with chicken; $13.95/with shrimp) is fresh and crisp; if you get the shrimp, they are grilled with real skill. Caprese salad ($8.95) had excellent fresh mozzarella, but came with winter tomatoes and no basil at all. Arugula and endive salad ($8.95) also reminded us that winter arugula lacks the bite you get during the summer, but it was a good salad.

In a less conventional mode, Pompeii did a terrific job with a genuinely seasonal dish, a soup of corn, baby shrimp, and basil oil ($7.95) with real basil flavor in a clump to one side, making it two soups — a superior chowder, then something like a pistou when you find the basil.

Main dishes were solid as well. Risotto alla Milanese with osso bucco ($17.95) sounds like a boutique dish, but seems to be on almost every North End menu these days. I favor this development. The risotto here was simple but correctly made, both creamy and very slightly chewy. The veal stew on top was richly flavored with carrots and shank meat — real slow food.

My second favorite was sautéed swordfish ($19.50), an excellent piece of fish with the universal side dishes (another mark of second-tier status, but hey — unlike a reviewer, you’re going to eat only one dinner, right?) of well-flavored roasted and buttered peppers, carrots, broccoli, and summer squash. A classic, but well done here, is the lasagna ($11.95). Our only quibble was that it was warm in the center but cool at the edges. This is the opposite effect of the more common problem of lasagna reheated in a conventional oven or microwave, so Pompeii is innocent of those sins. Apparently it was a fresh batch that had cooled while waiting for our other dishes, a minor kitchen miscue.

Pasta with pesto cream ($13.95) was a vast plate of decent noodles with decent sauce, very filling, and comforting to those who like this. The pesto tasted like a mixture of fresh and dried, a trick that doesn’t really work on anyone who makes pesto at home during the summer. Steak alla Pompeii ($24.95) evidently was cooked by a volcanic eruption — it was ordered medium and came well done. That may have happened when they melted on the cheese, or paused to add giant (and very toothsome) shrimp.

The wine list is mostly Italian and fairly good. When you see a few of each kind of grape, and then a whole page of Sangiovese-based wines, it’s best to go with something like our bottle of 2000 Ricasoli Chianti classico riserva “Rocco Guicciarda” ($36), a very fair price for a fully aged major Chianti. Major Chianti is still light enough to go very well with all kinds of food, but has near-tropical (in a red-wine way) depths of bouquet. Make a note to come back in a couple years when they have the 2003.

As you might expect, Pompeii has all the espresso, cappuccino, and Italian dessert liqueurs you can imagine. Better news is that they have desserts ($4.95) to go with them. Bought or made, their cannoli and tiramisu are as fresh (the key issue on these two desserts) and flavorful as any in Greater Boston. Add a nicely balanced chocolate cake — not overpowering, not too weak — and a respectable cheesecake, and it’s a fine flight at reasonable prices. Skip appetizers and linger over dessert.

Service our quiet early weeknight was just fine. The atmosphere and décor is all North End. You have the painted ceiling, the fake ancient-Roman statuary, the operatic arias in the background, the walk-in tourists at the next table. Of the latter, it must be said that they will be mighty glad not to be in Kansas by mid meal.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com . 

617.227.1562 | 280 Hanover Street, Boston
Open daily, 7 am–4 am | MC, VI | full bar | no valet parking | Up two steps from sidewalk level; bathrooms down full flight of stairs