Ristorante Fiore is now the largest restaurant in the North End, with the strengths and weaknesses that implies. It’s easy to get a table, either small or very large; and three dining spaces give you every option, from the popular rooftop to a bar with a working fireplace. There is a Web-based reservation system at www.ristorantefiore.com. (It works, but doesn’t include the roof-deck seating.) And there actually is a Fiore, namely Fiore Colella, who was born in Avellino, Campania. Colella worked his way up from dishwasher to chef and owner of Cantina Italiana next door, then took over a music store to build Fiore.

The menu is commendably short, somewhat expensive, and generally good, but not great. Much the same can be said of the wine list, although it usefully offers very large bottles, as large as five liters, at eminently fair prices. If you have a party of 10, you can feel quite luxurious with one of these bottles.

The breadbasket brings a crusty white Italian loaf, freshly sliced, with a pour of extra-virgin olive oil. Our favorite appetizer was the antipasto misto ($12), which leaned heavily on a fine ripe cantaloupe to contrast with meaty prosciutto (the classic combination), fingers of fresh mozzarella (surprisingly good), and triangles of provolone (okay). I also liked the bruschetta di peperoni ($9), made of garlic toasts topped with shredded roast peppers and goat cheese, some leaves of fresh basil, and a decoration of basil oil.

The tomato salad ($7) started with slices of a proper August beefsteak tomato, under a pile of shredded red onion, meaty anchovies, basil leaves, and a blue-cheese dressing I wouldn’t have associated with Italian food, but enjoyed quite a lot with the tomatoes. Frittura di calamari ($11) was slightly under-fried and served with fried slices of jalapeño peppers and a sweet marinara sauce as a dip.

The king of the pasta menu is bombolotti alla vodka ($25). Bombolotti are wagon-wheel shapes extruded to about twice the length of large ziti or rigatoni. They have to be cut before you can fit them into your mouth, but even so, the chambers hold a lot of sauce. And it’s a good sauce, with cream, tomatoes, and a little vodka for bite. The dish also features a whole lobster tail, some split shrimp, and underdone asparagus cut like green beans. The pasta was too soft for me to rate this a great pasta dish, but it was a satisfying plate of food.

Less satisfying was the cioppino ($34), a type of fish stew. It was full of good seafood, including enough lobster to justify the price, but there was no synergy with the thin tomato broth, despite the addition of grape tomatoes and fresh basil leaves. The contents, besides the lobster, were a king-crab leg, squid rings, bay scallops, shrimp, mussels, and some littleneck clams.

We also tried the gnocchi al forno ($15). These are larger dumplings, boiled and then baked with some ricotta and a lot of tomato sauce. The latter isn’t light enough for marinara, and lacks the slight caramelized quality of the long-cooked tomato sauces that made the North End famous.

Our best main dish was probably agnello ai ferri ($26), described as a double-cut lamb chop, but actually about six ribs of real baby lamb, done medium to order, and served with buttery mashed potatoes. I also liked the duck breast Marsala ($22) for the meaty slices, sweet-sour sauce, two wild asparagus, and two baby carrots, but I thought the underlying risotto had the perfect taste of bouillon cubes. This doesn’t necessarily mean it was made that way, just that the combination of herbs, salt, spices, and broth produced that effect. (I once followed an elaborate recipe for a seafood-mushroom risotto and ended up with almost exactly the tuna-rice casserole my Jewish mother served in the 1950s.)

The mostly Italian wine list is strongest in Tuscan varieties, from Rosso di Montepulciano up to Brunello di Montalcino, in those giant bottles. We had an ordinary bottle of Centine ($25), Banfi’s Tuscan blend of sangiovese (the main grape of Chianti) with merlot (the second grape of Bordeaux and the main grape of dating-bar reds). The list offered "2000/2001," so I said we’d take the 2000 if there was any left. Our server came and explained that the available year was 2002. Since this kind of lighter wine is designed to be drinkable when shipped, that was fine. It was a good wine for this food, although more solid than the carafe wines of Tuscany I was thinking about. Fiore also has fine decaf ($2) and everything that comes from an espresso-cappuccino machine, including that drinkable oxymoron, decaf espresso ($2.50).

Desserts are above average for the North End (where the average, already not high, is brought down further by some of the smaller restaurants that do not serve dessert). The tiramisu ($7) is like an actual slice of a high, round cream cake. A special dessert, frutti di bosco ($9), combined superb strawberry gelato with very decent fresh strawberries. The Italian sorbets are imported, so we’ve seen them elsewhere, although not the refreshing lemon ($7). Chocolate-mousse cake ($7) was creamy and well frosted, but not really power chocolate.

Service at Fiore was very good on a weeknight. The downstairs dining room is all beiges and golds, very nice colors to set off people and food, and it gradually filled up in the early evening. But the action in the summer was on the roof garden. I don’t like to eat outdoors when reviewing, because I find it hard to taste in the open air, between the breeze and the cigarettes. But the roof might be a very good choice for smallish parties if they don’t mind louder surroundings, because Fiore’s food is more hearty than subtle. The really large tables are on the street level — maybe so the servers don’t have to carry those five-liter bottles of wine upstairs to decant them. The middle floor, a long, narrow room, is done in Sienese maroon.

One of Fiore’s best features is its sheer size, which makes it ideal for large parties. There are also some private spaces for catering. But it should be possible to walk in most nights, and have a pleasant if not epic dining experience.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.