Por Frank Sabatini Jr.

I’ve dined at zillions of Italian restaurants and in my earlier years ate my way throughout Italy, mostly in people’s homes. Yet every once in a while I’ll encounter dishes from the Mother Country that seem novel but really aren’t, which keeps affirming Italian cuisine is boundless in its history and regional origins.

Helming the kitchen at Toast Enoteca & Cucina is Chef Martin Gonzalez, who has become a frequent traveler to Italy over the past 15 years since opening Acqua al 2 in the Gaslamp, which offers an identical menu as its parent restaurant in Florence.

In his more recent venture at Toast, however, he takes a neo-classical approach with modern Enomatic wine-dispensing machines while injecting chic twists into recipes with rustic roots.

An antipasti of prosciutto di Parma, for instance, is paired with pineapple instead of melon. The tropical fruit appears also in a kale salad tied to Italy by its robust Pecorino cheese and extraordinarily refined, imported balsamic vinegar. Tasteful and seemingly innovative to American palates, Gonzalez plays on Italy’s love of pineapple used in summer fruit salads. And it worked for us.

Italians do marvelous things with cauliflower, which Gonzalez spotlights in another appetizer by serving it roasted in a simple, lovely bath of thin tomato sauce, Chardonnay and garlic. A few shavings of Grana Padano cheese on top clenched the deal.

Rarely do I see red cabbage incorporated into Italian dishes. In our final starter, it was braised and stuffed into puffy “focaccia riplena” along with excellent house-made Italian sausage and ultra-buttery mozzarella. Resembling a jagged calzone, the pleasing creation occupies a large plate and constitutes as a full meal.

Had we been visiting for dinner instead of a workday lunch, the ever-changing wine inventory would have snagged us. It’s everywhere you look, starting from an iPad list presented upon arrival to the modern dispensing machines rigged throughout the dining room and behind the bar. Italy is naturally well represented. And volume options allow for 1-ounce pours, half or full glasses and whole bottles.

Pasta is made daily on the premises. In the case of fettuccine, the tender and ribbony noodles are presented “al Burro” style — or what Americans equate to Alfredo. But in the true Roman way, the cream is omitted as to not obliterate the flavors of the butter and Parmesan. We ordered it with the addition of shrimp, and not for a second did we miss the cream, although a little less salt in the dish’s making would have raised it to perfection.

Bavettini is another cut of house-made pasta, which resembles linguine. Here, a tad of cream factored into the basil pesto sauce, which exemplified its herbiness but without necessarily adding heaviness. In both dishes, the pasta was cooked al dente, sparing their sauces the starchy interference that occurs when cooked too soft.

Unable to resist a pizza, we ordered one mainly to go, a pretty thing topped scantily with Pomodoro tomato sauce, colored sweet bell peppers, red onions, pine nuts and mozzarella. A few plops of Gorgonzola cheese spread across the thin-crust pie added tang while micro bursts of rosemary emerged from underneath the toppings. It hit all the marks you’d expect from a fashionable Italian restaurant such as this.

Toast’s newly consolidated menu features paninis and $8 lunch specials (available from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.). The paninis reveal trendy fillings like kale, pork belly and freshly sliced tenderloin. Other items from the regular menu include seafood risotto in seaweed sauce, pork belly lasagna, sage-sautéed beef, fresh fish and charcuterie boards.

In addition, happy hour was recently introduced, from 3 to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. For $5, customers can seize a glass of wine along with Brussels sprouts au gratin, sautéed Italian sausage or mini pizzas for the same price per item. The bargains extend also to $3 draft beer.

—Frank Sabatini Jr. is the author of “Secret San Diego” (ECW Press), and began his local writing career more than two decades ago as a staffer for the former San Diego Tribune. You can reach him en [email protected].