In a city like ours, which has dozens of Italian restaurants, it can be very hard to stand out from the crowd. One veal parm melts into another. One plate of beans and greens is very much like the one before it, and the one to come after it, for that matter. And the endless procession of all things "French" gets tedious through over-exposure. In order to break away from the pack, an Italian restaurant has to offer something new and different, or it has to do the classics so well that they seem new and fresh. Two of Rochester's restaurant veterans have done just that at Italian Osteria Abruzzi, across from Seabreeze Amusement Park in Irondequoit.

Sharon Russo and Giustino Toppi, both most recently of the Trattoria Abruzzo on Ridge Road, combined their formidable experience and talent in producing a quintessential Italian restaurant that ever-so-slightly pushes the envelope of what you would expect to find on the menu. At first glance, not much distinguishes Italian Osteria from any other Italian place, including its predecessor Trattoria Abruzzo - even the layout of the banner on the menu echoes the earlier restaurant. The interior looks like every other red-sauce joint - a dining room carved out of a former house with a vaguely 60's or 70's rec-room feel to it. Even the music is what you would expect: all day, all the time, Frank and Deano croon the classics. The only trope that's missing is the raffia-wrapped bottles of chianti or sangiovese on the table. The wine is there, it's just not covered in wicker, alas.

With all of the standard props in place, you'd expect the menu here to be unexciting, but it's not. Chef Toppi brings more than 50 years of experience in the kitchen to bear on both the classics and dishes that aren't often seen on Italian restaurant menus. Yes, he makes greens and beans, and there are artichokes French on the appetizer menu, but there are also some exciting things, particularly the unpronouncable cacio e uova, a mixture of escarole, eggs, garlic and cheese that may well displace omelets or frittata as standard brunch fare ($8.95). The combination of chopped escarole sauteed with garlic and then mixed with egg and cheese to produce something that looks like a very loose, moist omelet does not have immediate curb appeal. But the flavor is out of this world. Creamy and smooth with hints of slightly bitter green and salty notes from the cheese, this is straight-up comfort food probably born out of adversity - some age-old Italian mother pressed to make dinner when all that was left in the house were greens, the eggs she'd gathered that morning, and a cheese rind.

Chef Toppi's soups are studies in minimalism, bringing roughly the same ingredients used in cacio e uova to bear on a different medium with very tasty results. Stracciatella ($2.50 cup, $3 bowl), the Italian version of Chinese egg-drop soup, requires the chef to beat eggs and good parmesan cheese together into a loose batter before pouring the mixture into the simmering soup. In order to stop the eggs from simply clumping together, the chef has to temper the egg mixture by adding hot broth to it a bit at a time so that the egg coalesces into long, feathery strands. Doing it right takes practice, and Chef Toppi does it perfectly. The soup, clearly based on a good homemade stock, is full of vegetables, the egg mixture adding a creamy and salty complement to the other ingredients.

The red sauce at Italian Osteria is the second-best I've tasted anywhere (the best, in case you are wondering, is made by Angie Capone at Antonetta's on Jay Street). It is rich and sweet with an underlying meaty flavor that is very appealing, bringing with it a pleasant, garlicky tang and a bit of herbs with just the tiniest licorice aftertaste that might be fennel seed. Deep red and walking the narrow line between too thick and too thin, it's good on everything, even on bits of bread that I used to mop up my plate at the end of the meal.

Chef Toppi's sauce may be second-best, but what's under the sauce is unparalleled. His homemade ravioli - massive pillows of tender pasta stuffed with a flavorful ricotta mixture - are without peer in our area ($14.95). The cutlets of both veal and eggplant on his plates of parmigiana are artfully cooked, golden and crispy outside, tender and juicy within ($14.95, eggplant; $16.95, veal). Toppi's skill is particularly evident in the eggplant, which is cut just thick enough to maintain some body in cooking but not so thick as to be tough or undercooked. He also clearly salts his eggplant before breading and cooking it, removing the slightly bitter taste that often mars fried eggplant dishes. He even cooks pasta perfectly, the penne in his excellent (and incredibly spicy) penne all'arrabiata actually stands up on the plate like a forest of little quills, rather than sliding around aimlessly in the sauce ($15.95).

Often restaurants give away the chef's specialties by attaching his name to them. At Italian Osteria Abruzzi, it's the name of the chef's home region in Italy that's the giveaway: anything with "Abruzzi" on it is going to be amazing - and the pollo Abruzzi ($16.95) is no exception. Really just a variation on chicken marsala, pollo Abruzzi combines a well-seared chicken cutlet, pounded thin, with crimini mushrooms and cannelini beans and prosciutto in a marsala wine sauce that is unquestionably finished with a generous shot of butter. The result is heavenly. The mushrooms are seared to heighten their flavor, the ham cooked tender but not overdone, and the beans - these were definitely soaked and cooked in house rather than coming from a can - are tender and remarkably savory. Chef Toppi uses all of these ingredients to build a sauce that is so complex that it's nearly impossible to describe: garlic, salt, an undercurrent of good wine, the earthy musk of mushrooms, and the slight thickening power of the beans are so wonderful that you almost forget about the chicken in your desire not to let a single spoonful of sauce escape your attention.

Assuming there are any leftovers - and that's very likely given that portions here are huge - pollo Abruzzi will be the dish that you will covet for lunch the next day, assuming that your spouse doesn't beat you to it and polish it off as a midnight snack.

To find Italian Osteria Abruzzi in City Newspaper's online Restaurant Guide -- including a map, user reviews, and more -- click here.

Italian Osteria Abruzzi

4671 Culver Road | 338-7440

Mon-Tue & Thu 4-9 p.m., Fri-Sat 4-10 p.m.