A BRICK OVEN AND A SOLID FUTURE

Author(s): Amy Graves, GLOBE STAFF Date: September 12, 2002 Page: 6 Section: Calendar

Atkins dieters, beware. There's a menace out there who will undermine your resolve, and his name is David Rosenberg. He runs a carbohydrate house of ill repute called Franca's Brick Oven Pizzeria, a Waltham restaurant he took over a year ago. He is known to the local authorities and students of Brandeis University and Bentley College, who have been beating a path to his door.

If you see this man at your table, speak calmly and cooperate fully. He will tempt you with his favorites from the menu and ply you with wine and beer. He wants you to love Italian cooking as much as he does, so just smile and play along. If upon the next morning the scales tip in the wrong direction, well, we warned you. At first glance, Franca's doesn't look like a source of culinary temptation. The bricklayer who built it didn't stop with the oven, using bricks for all the restaurant's walls and window frames (probably remnants from other jobs, Rosenberg says later).

I love exposed brick, but it doesn't go with the ugly red formica benches fixed to the floor at all the tables. With neon beer signs, ceiling fans a la 1976, and lights on too bright in the nonsmoking section, it's like a truck stop in there. But as soon as an order of calamari arrives, we stop with the architectural critiques and dive in.

The calamari rings and tentacles ($6.95), dipped in batter and fried very lightly, are tender and flavorful, not chewy, and the big plate is more than enough for two as an appetizer. The real test of calamari, I've always thought, is to eat them without relying on tomatoe-y cocktail sauce. I like them with salt and a little fresh lemon juice, so that probably helps, but these pass with flying colors.

Rosenberg, a Brookline boy born and raised, ran a steakhouse on Route 9 for years and then the clubhouse at Putterham Golf Course before he found this Waltham restaurant for sale. He revived it with a love of Italian culture and food, adding a long list of classic pasta and antipasti offerings to the pizza combinations. He created a 100-seat function room above the restaurant and last fall invited the RAs from the dorms at Brandeis and Bentley to a pizza party. Wisely, it seems, as the place fills with students and the takeout orders seem steady.

Rosenberg also put some thought into the selection and procurement of cheese, which may explain why even a plain-sounding pizza with plum tomatoes and broccoli ($8 medium; $11 large) sings with freshness and simplicity and makes us reach for another slice.

A chef's special pizza, with breaded eggplant, mushrooms, and pepperoni, is lighter than it sounds and full of garlic. ($9 medium; $13 large) Pizza isn't overwhelmed with cheese here, and the brick oven seems to work its own magic: there isn't a trace of oil.

Even if you aren't starving, meals here are an irresistible feast. We enjoyed almost everything, a result I wish I'd known going in. Insalata a mista ($5.75), a nice melange of greens, very ripe plum tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, and homemade creamy Italian dressing, turns out to be large enough to share, for instance.

Hot antipasti ($6.95), another very large platter, includes sauteed mushroom, pepper, onion, pepperoni, olive oil, breaded eggplant, prosciutto, and provolone, is an inspired reinvention of the usual Italian cold-cuts. The warm vegetables rest on cool shredded lettuce, a pleasant sensation, and the peppers are mellowed by cooking. And there's that breaded eggplant again, lightly fried and tender within.

Spaghetti carbonara ($9.95), heaps of rope-shaped pasta, cooked to al dente and covered in a sauce of eggs, cream, Parmesan, and bacon-diced proscuitto, proves a little rich for me. I have seen this dish with fresh peas to counteract this outcome and add color. But this simple combination yields almost primal satisfaction no matter what, and even if this is creamier than other versions I like, it reminds me pleasantly of creamed chipped beef on toast.

I'm planning to go back to Franca's to try some other highly-recommended items, such as broccoli and chicken over ziti, eggplant Parmesan, veal Marsala, and homemade tiramisu or double-chocolate cake (a customer favorite) for dessert. Thank God I'm not on the Atkins diet.

Boston.com and The Boston Globe images are property and copyright of The Boston Globe.