The Mott: A cozy find with thoughtful cooking pops up in Nolita

• Cuisine: Modern American
• Vibe: Charming downtown nook
• Occasion: Casual date, group dinner, intimate evening
• Don't Miss: Fluke crudo, ricotta gnocchi, duck breast with spinach and figs
• Price: Appetizers, $11; entrees, $22; desserts, $7
• Reservations: Recommended
• Phone: 212-966-1411
• Location: 173 Mott St., at Broome

I have to admit: Dinner's a lot more affordable when there's no alcohol on the menu. But most people like to have a drink with dinner. These days, you need one. Or two.

It's hard enough to open a restaurant, never mind a sobering one. The Mott, a new establishment in Nolita, had to debut without a liquor license. There was some saga about how Emma Cleary, a former owner, parted ways and took The Mott's liquor license with her.

But you know what? The Mott's doing pretty well without one and it's not because of the location. It's situated at the edge of Nolita, on the verge of Chinatown, where the only other thing open at night is one of those Tui-Na massage parlors.

The space is wonderfully quaint — a 38-seat nook furnished with romantic lighting, tin ceilings, whitewashed brick walls and a padded brown leather bar. There's a small, well-edited menu of American dishes like pan-seared cod, chilled summer tomato soup and roasted chicken with haricots vert and fingerling potatoes.

The flavors are much bigger than the menu. The chef, Brian Bieler, used to cook at Upstairs at Bouley and Cafe Luxembourg. Here he's cooking what he wants to cook.

When a chef is happy, you can ­really taste it on the plate. Fluke crudo tends to be delicate and subtle. Not at The Mott. Raw fluke — sprinkled with diced cantaloupe, sea salt, snap peas and a generous dose of chili oil — is sweet and spicy and sour all in the same bite. There are a lot of gnocchi dishes in this city, but the ricotta gnocchi at The Mott are perfectly cooked, pillowy nibbles, coupled with fresh artichokes and toasted pine nuts in an artichoke reduction sauce...

New Nolita Italian spot Civetta makes disappointing debut

• Cuisine: Italian-centric Mediterranean
• Vibe: Inviting downtown kitchen
• Occasion: Group dinner; drink date downstairs
• Don't Miss: Rigatoni alla Bolognese, lamb goat cheese polpettine, lamb sausage with drunken raisins
• Price: Appetizers, $13; entrees, $28; desserts, $7
• Reservations: Recommended
• Phone: (212) 966-9440
• Location: 98 Kenmare St. between Mulberry St. and Cleveland Pl.

Sfoglia is an irresistible Italian spot on the upper East Side with wonderful food and tons of charm. Judging from the reservation book, everyone else thinks it’s irresistible, too. Sfoglia is run by Colleen and Ron Suhanosky, a husband-and-wife team who work alongside each other in the kitchen. But maybe they needed a little space, because they have just built a bigger kitchen in a much bigger restaurant way downtown.

The new place, Civetta, on the edge of Nolita, is Sfoglia’s midlife crisis. The restaurant has two personalities and two dramatically different floors. The first floor is an inviting dining room with sunny yellow walls, shelves stocked with copper pots and canned tomatoes, a fireplace and salvaged church pew-banquettes. But head downstairs, and Civetta is a brooding basement lounge with lipstick-red velvet banquettes, stone walls, white marble tables and tall, drippy candles.

They’ve crafted an extensive cocktail selection to attract a young downtown crowd, serving drinks until 2 in the morning every evening. I started downstairs with a Neopolitan Negroni — a good starter cocktail made with Campari, gin and vermouth — then headed upstairs for dinner. The Suhanoskys’ downtown menu features Italian-focused Mediterranean cooking like baccala fritters with pickled red onions, seafood risotto and grilled sirloin alla pizzaiola. You’ll get tons of attention in the dining room, a little too much from servers who tend to hover.

But nobody’s home in the kitchen. Almost everything’s overcooked or over-sauced. I ordered an appetizer of stone fruits with smoked ricotta. It came in a cloying sea of agrodolce (sweet and sour sauce). My gnocchi were lifeless little nubs stuck in a quicksand of pesto, my romaine, crab and peperonata salad mired in a muck of aioli. We had to saw our way through an overcooked pork cutlet, curiously topped with grated carrots, guanciale salad and Vin Santo dressing. The spaghetti with sea urchin sauce was a foul-smelling disaster. I like briny, salty creatures from the sea, but the sea urchin tasted like it had washed ashore days before.

Maybe Ron and Colleen were downstairs drinking a sidecar, pink lady or Notte Civetta, which translates as night owl. There are a few bright spots on the menu, like moist monkfish polpet-tine (little meatballs) seasoned with ricotta, peppers and olives. I also liked the rigatoni alla Bolognese, made with a wonderful mix of ground veal, lamb, pork and chicken livers. The house-made lamb sausage was fiery and flavorful, served alongside caramelized endive and drunken raisins.

There’s a respectable, mostly Italian wine list with a spicy, medium-bodied Le Salare Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 2006 and an excellent Abbazia di Nova-cella Gruner Veltliner 2007. I loved the peach layer cake with mascarpone and meringue, but the rest of the desserts were forgettable.

The owners were so successful uptown. Why did they fail downtown? Is it the subway right below, the scale of the room, the overblown menu? The cooking was so thoughtful and the room so intimate at Sfoglia. Civetta, though, bears little resemblance to its uptown sibling.

Except for the bread. It’s the same bread Colleen bakes at Sfoglia, with a salty, crunchy exterior and soft, plush interior. At least one thing arrived intact.