Where is it written that a suburban restaurant must serve safe, predictable dishes
that are the culinary equivalent of a "top ten" list?

Nowhere. Certainly not on the menu of Babbo Bruno, a feisty new Webster Italianspot that does not assume its customers are interested only in fettuccine Alfredowith grilled chicken.Serious eaters from Clear Lake to Baybrook to Friendswood should rejoice that thisambitious place has arrived in the neighborhood.

There are still some rough edges at this early stage of the restaurant's life, but Genovese chef-owner Stefano Bertolotti and his Sicilian wife, Nella, have brought some badly needed gravitas to greaterHouston's fasoutheastern food scene. Yes, he's that Bertolotti -- the guy whose restaurant just east of Kirby Drive won alow-key following in the 1980s. I remember liking Bertolotti's just fine, but it was nota place I craved when I was in a mood for Italian.

His latest venture -- which translates as "Daddy Bruno's," and which borrows