Where, for example, do you go if you don't want to shuffle more than a few paces from the Broadway theater in which the show you're seeing is playing? If you want a place that feels a bit indulgent but not remotely reckless? That favors hearty fare over dainty fillips? That pays fitting tribute to the milky glory of mozzarella?

You go to La Masseria. And you go knowing that, while you won't have the meal of your life — or even the meal of your month — most of your food will be good, you will certainly eat plenty, and you will sidestep the many disasters along the Great White Way, a culinary minefield of considerable peril.

In fact my first meal at La Masseria was significantly better than good, and that judgment transcended the mozzarella, a subject to which I will later return. Along with a colleague, I dropped by La Masseria for lunch, not really knowing what — beyond the probability of pasta — to expect.

The restaurant was almost empty, which may be why the food was more impressively prepared than it would turn out to be on subsequent visits. The kitchen wasn't stretched anywhere close to thin.

And so the baby octopus appetizer was a many-tentacled, many-splendored thing: supple rather than rubbery, with a garland of slightly crunchy broccoli rabe and a cushion of puréed fava beans. A tangle of tagliatelle did the Bolognese sauce atop and around it proud, providing a vehicle that was sturdy but never clunky.

Although many Italian restaurants sputter when it comes to main courses, La Masseria zipped right along, as if on cruise control.

A decadently thick, expansively broad veal chop, seasoned in a restrained fashion with rosemary and sage, was a juicy invitation to gluttony, which we promptly and unconditionally accepted, leaving very little meat on the bone.

An extremely moist fillet of pompano, sautéed in a bit of butter and white wine and sprinkled judiciously with lemon, provided precisely the right, light counterpoint, reprieve and amends that we felt we needed. We decided it was O.K. to eat the whole thing, and rapidly did so.

Then we waddled back to the office with that special brand of contentment — a satisfaction mingled with a sense of discovery — that you get when you've had a terrific meal at a restaurant about which no one had made grand pronouncements or promises.

And while La Masseria occasionally disappointed me over time, that lunch underscored how diligent and deft this restaurant can be with the highlights of its menu and under the most optimal of circumstances.

Masseria means farm or farmhouse, and it's not only the restaurant's name but also its design cue, readying the stage for walls of stone or rough stucco, exposed wooden beams along the ceiling and, dangling on some of those walls, antique farm tools: a pitchfork, harnesses.

Thankfully, the restaurant doesn't overplay this conceit. You notice it but then forget it, holding on to a vague awareness that the visual environment, like the food, veers deliberately and fetchingly in the direction of rustic.

But the most appealing aspect of this restaurant's setting is the dimensions. The dining room is relatively broad and extraordinarily deep, with a few unexpected nooks toward the back. All this space translates into tables that are not wedged tightly together, and the absence of crowding is a balm for the ears as well as the elbows. It helps keep a lid on noise.

The menu ranges far and wide over land and sea, carpaccio and capesante, in a naked bid to appeal to all audiences. There are unfamiliar scene-stealers, including a dish of fettucinelike noodles with wedges of eggplant and smoked mozzarella in a light tomato sauce. There are familiar star turns, including that tagliatelle. And there are unfamiliar performances from familiar players, most conspicuously a limoncello-flavored tiramisù that, like most other desserts, was worthy of nothing more than faint applause.