Convivio

If you're looking for a sign of the times, Convivio is it.

45 Tudor City Place, at 42nd St. (212) 599-5045
Sun.-Thur., 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m; Fri.-Sat., 5:30 p.m.-11:30 p.m.
Cuisine Southern Italian.
Vibe Warm Tudor City haunt.
Occasion Business lunch; group dinner.
Don't Miss Dish Four-course prix fixe or the sweetbreads piccata, tuna & caper ravioli, roasted squab.
Average Price Appetizers, $13; entrees, $25; dessert, $11.
Reservations Recommended.

Sometimes, a restaurant doesn't really need a makeover. All it needs is a make-under.

Convivio is a perfect example. Just six weeks ago, L'Impero shut its doors on a quiet block in Tudor City. Two weeks later, it reopened as Convivio. A quick wardrobe change, a few tweaks to the menu and voila, a new restaurant. Sort of. It's the same chef, Michael White, same owners, and yet everything feels different.

The banquettes are brighter, burnt orange, instead of somber blue. The service is still efficient, but somehow friendlier. The room is warmer, the atmosphere more relaxed. Now it's less a jacket-and-tie kind of place, more jacket-and-loosened tie. If you're looking for a sign of the times, Convivio is it. Even the dishes carried over from L'Impero, including the prix fixe, have gone down in price. Not a lot, but enough to seem empathetic. After all, the easy times may be over - for now anyway.

But the drop in price at Convivio doesn't mean a sacrifice in quality. If you have any doubts, order the sweetbreads.  Sometimes, sweetbreads can look, and even taste, a little too anatomical. But Michael White's sweetbreads look and taste almost ethereal. They're glossed in a chive-speckled piccata sauce that cuts right through the unctuousness of the sweetbreads. This is my favorite dish on the menu.

I apparently like my quail skewered, too. Who knew? But when it's on a kebab with chunks of pancetta and shiitake mushrooms, and drizzled in a vin cotto, the logic of skewering quail seems perfectly clear. In a way, these two dishes are emblematic of what Michael White does best. He works well with bold flavors and resilient textures. Clearly, what appeals to him is the rusticity of southern Italian cooking.

It's almost as simple as meat versus fish. The pastas with meat sauces always trump the pastas with seafood, except for a wonderful ravioli of braised tuna and capers, which has all the sweetness (and some of the salt) of the sea itself. Sometimes, the delicacy of the fish on the menu is overwhelmed, and sometimes it's underwhelmed. A heavy, mint-laced yogurt kept arguing with a very creative swordfish involtino. The crab gnocchetti was served in an innocuous sea urchin sub-bisque.

And the shrimp in the calamari-tossed spaghetti were too few and too tiny. Eating them was like playing a game of connect-the-shrimp.

Somehow, you can always tell when a chef likes to eat. What tells you that Michael White is a good eater is the pasta at Convivio - any pasta with meat sauce. Take your pick - ricotta cavatelli baked with goat ragu in a buffalo mozzarella and pecorino "hoodie." Or perhaps, a fusilli with chunks of pork shoulder topped with a fonduta, or orecchiette with sausage, tripe and wild fennel. These are superb dishes to settle down to on a chilly night in late November or even late August.

You may want to spend some of the money you save on the wines. This is one unusual, impressive selection of wines by the glass. The Carjanti Gulfi 2005, a Sicilian white, is amazingly adaptable. And where else can you find a Mariposa Panevino 2006 by the glass? It's a deftly balanced, irresistibly aromatic Sardinian wine. For dessert, don't miss the beignet, the Tudor City equivalent of funnel cake.