A feel for the real thing

For authentic Italian fare, nobody does it better than Pearland's Jordana Putnik

There are things culinary schools just can't teach.

For illustrative purposes, consider the formidable "mama" Jordana Putnik, the self-taught chef at Santa Barbara Italian Cafe in Pearland.

Steve Campbell : Chronicle Jordana Putnik demonstrates her considerable — and natural — talent at Santa Barbara Italian Cafe.

If you're already squeaking "Pearland!?!" in aggrieved tones, hear me out. This is no time to get provincial. Putnik, a Croatian matriarch who was once a banker, is one of those instinctive talents who has the palate — and the feel for ingredients — to make just about anything taste great.

Her little 8-year-old restaurant qualifies as a local treasure. Indeed, her eggplant parmigiana, veal piccata and lasagna alone warrant the kind of Michelin stars that signify a restaurant that is "worth a journey."

Not that we're talking much of a journey.

Ever driven to Hobby Airport? You're practically at Santa Barbara already. Just continue along Telephone Road, aka Texas 35, for another six or seven miles to the old part of Pearland. Turn right on FM 518, drive a mile west, and you're there.

And oh, the rewards of being in this eccentrically beleafed and bemuraled slot of space, breathing in the aromas of inspired home cooking and cracking open a bottle of your favorite wine, which you've brought along.

Santa Barbara provides the corkscrew and the glasses; you do the rest.

As a result of the BYOB policy, you can end up eating and drinking extraordinarily well for the money. Santa Barbara, in fact, is exactly the sort of place where I'd dine regularly if I weren't always chasing new restaurants in the course of my job.

I have trouble tearing myself away from my favorite dishes here. The first-course platter of big, peppered tails-on shrimp and seared scallops, all swamped in a delirious garlic-butter sauce, is outrageously good. Competing for the last morsel with two friends on a recent evening, I found myself wishing the restaurant served the dish tossed with pasta so I wouldn't have to share.

Mea gulpa. It's easy to get possessive at Santa Barbara: about the simple, perfect fried calamari with their bright-tasting marinara, say. Or about the whopping slab of lasagna that may just be the best in town, from its Bologneselike meat layer incorporating pork, veal and carrot along with the usual ground beef to its ricotta layer with the lushness of a rich béchamel. A nicely restrained application of marinara and melted cheese gives the dish room to breathe.

Steve Campbell : Chronicle Eggplant parmigiana.

The same thing happens to the eggplant parmigiana here. Three monumental rounds of skin-on eggplant are crisply battered and fried to order, so that they emerge molten and barely gilded with marinara and melted mozzarella cheese. It's glorious, elemental stuff.

Mama Jordana adores cream — and unlike many cooks, she knows how to use it to light, graceful effect. The lemon-butter cream sauce on her piccata dishes has a dazzling citrus sparkle to it; the veal piccata is particularly fine, fashioned of pale scaloppine that have been delicately sautéed rather than battered and fried into submission.

Putnik's creamy marsala sauce surprises, too, with its pale-pink tint and its subtlety; the fortified wine registers as a haunting note, not a sweet, heavy presence. With sautéed chicken and a tangle of skinny pasta, it's opulent comfort food.

I've never had anything at Santa Barbara I didn't like. Well, except for one night when the house-made Italian vinaigrette that came with the restaurant's family-style mixed-lettuce salad turned out to be mysteriously devoid of flavor. (By my next visit, it was back to its old, brisk self, and the nimble, creamy Caesar dressing is ever-delightful.)

I might wish for crustier, more compelling bread in the tabletop baskets, and a readjustment of the overhead spotlights, which create some glare and a few harsh spots in the otherwise comfortable dining room.

And I'll admit that my wish list might provide for Mama P. to try out some family-style vegetable dishes to go with her splendid pastas and entrees. I'd love to see what this woman could do with broccoli rabe, fresh artichokes and green beans. Peppers. Fennel. Hey, I can dream.

I already dream about the food here, anyway. About the surprising Sicilian fettucine, with its wealth of red and yellow peppers, its grilled shrimp and its uncloying sweet/sour effect, which the Italians call agrodolce. Or about the generous steaks that Putnik cuts herself, homey and satisfying under their delicious red-wine gravy.

Steve Campbell : Chronicle Sicilian fettucine.

And don't even get me started about the maniacal tiramisu, a golden puff of mascarpone cream in a huge goblet, or the stupendous carrot cake, a towering affair in which you can actually taste carrots and nuts, not the usual overload of sugar. Believe me, carrot cake does not get better than this.

And so what if it's not Italian? Neither is Mama Jordana.

Croatia lies just across the Gulf of Venice from Italy, so the Italian influence is strong there, and culinary ideas from Greece and Hungary seep in, too. Ergo, Putnik's way with feta and fresh peppers. She attributes her cream and butter fetish to her French leanings. Her feel for seafood has made the leap intact from the Adriatic Sea to the Gulf of Mexico.

All this makes a happy culinary marriage at Santa Barbara, a union that might as well be celebrated with carroty American wedding cake. Why not?

This gem of a restaurant is the Houston version of Mosca's, the New Orleans mecca for Creole Louisiana Italian food where hybridization has produced fabulous, distinctive dishes.

The woman to thank can usually be spotted working the dozen or so tables toward the end of the evening, a large presence in every way, from her throaty voice to her big laugh. Often she ends up at one of several tables on the sidewalk of the strip center where Santa Barbara is sandwiched between a Mexican restaurant and an Indian grocery.

She puffs on a cigarette, hails departing guests, gossips with regulars, accepts congratulations.

She's earned them.

Santa Barbara Italian Cafe: 5012 W. Broadway (FM 518), Pearland

Hours: lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; dinner 3-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays and 3-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays

Credit cards: all major

Prices: starters $3.50-$11.99; entrees $7.99-$20.50; desserts $5.99

Reservations: recommended on weekends

Noise level: moderate

Smoking: outdoor tables only

Call 281-485-5676 for more information.

alison.cook@chron.com