Nello Summertimes

Nello primo resides on the Upper East Side. The restaurant's Hamptonian offspring builds on it and perfects fleecing. You could pay for a brief vacation or have a mediocre dinner for four.

None of the immaculately tanned and the imperially slim appear to mind all this. No one is here for the food, anyway. Even the staff recommends tables based on "people watching." Such a sporting event, complete with scalper-price tickets, typifies Nello Summertimes.

And, on a summer night, you'll have plenty to observe, as old money gives way to new.

Nello Summertimes used to be The Post House, a Southampton mainstay. The desirable seats are alfresco. Indlelit; noisy, crowded and adorned with art by LeRoy .Neiman, who also has his signature on a $42 chicken dish.

Saturday night live may star a heavyweight customer bellowing operatically to "tell Nello" he's here. A matchstick parades by carrying in her purse a pooch, perhaps with a penchant for the veal. Countless young things suggest an outbreak of acute strapless blondness.

One week, a blocky guy with sunglasses manned the streetside entrance, under an arch at the head of steps that need paint. Climbing them, an embodiment of old Southampton asked about drinks, and posed the question: "Are you the bouncer?" The next week, he was replaced by a smoother continental, softening the house style a bit.

So, never underestimate the entertainment value of a Fellini casting call. It must be built into the $32 you drop on middling vitello tonnato. Or the unannounced $55 spent on a special of mezzo-mezzo lobster risotto, plopped on the plate with all the elegance of a college cafeteria.

The "Where's Waldo?" dishes are rigatoni Siciliana, with undercover eggplant; and pappardelle Bolognese, which must be aimed at vegetarians. That dish contained an errant strand of spaghetti, but at no extra cost. Paglia e fieno au gratin: haute mac-and-cheese, overcooked, with a few peas and less prosciutto.

Panzanella, described as a "peasant salad," comes in at $21. This version of the bread salad contained a solitary crouton in its radicchio-clad mix of chopped tomatoes and onions. The Caesar salad must be named for Sid: at $20, it's a little joke.

Carciofi alla giudea, the classic deep-fried, tender young artichokes ofRome, turn into one doorknob-size number harder than a rent hike. No wine will help, especially since the half-bottles start at $50 -- and, at least once, the waitress poured a different second vino into a partly filled glass containing the first.

The tariff for a dry veal chop Milanese, pounded into sufficient submission to cover its white plate, also hits $50. That's the cutting sum, too, for a "tagliata," a steak that makes the $75 porterhouse for two at Peter Luger seem a bargain. Grilled swordfish, with Champagne mustard, and grilled halibut, barely dabbed with pesto, turn out bland. Grilled calamari becomes a study in resistance.

And the chicken LeRoy Neiman, underseasoned and overorchestrated, is white meat stuffed with asparagus stems, sliced so you see encircled circles of green -- a color Nello Summertimes must revere.

Desserts bore. But what do you want for $14? The sweets include a creamy puck of cheesecake and a mellow tiramisu, a standard crème brûlée and dreary panna cotta, plus an individual chocolate cake with walnuts that once was arid, another time moist. Consider it a gamble.

Nello Summertimes, however, is a sure thing.

Reviewed by Peter M. Gianotti, 8/7/05