Toronto has its share of revered restaurateurs, and Franco Agostino is certainly among them. With the pedigree of popular restaurants like Il Posto and Banfi under his Versace kidskin belt, Agostino has garnered a certain amount of respect from feeding Toronto's monied maws over the years.

His latest venture, Imperia, shows off a rejuvenated Agostino who seems to have shifted gears from upscale Italian to down-home trattoria. He sold Il Posto because he was concerned with rising rents in the Yorkville area - ironically, Imperia is still in Yorkville, albeit buried between a parking lot and a slew of hair salons. But food of this calibre, and at these prices, means Imperia will not fly under the radar for long.

Hailing from the West Coast is chef Christopher Palik, who spent five years in Vancouver and one, most recently, in France before working at Langdon Hall in Cambridge and The Strand and Empire here in Toronto and then hooking up with Agostino. Palik shows his mettle early in the meal, from house-made, warm-from-the-oven breads to hand-rolled pastas.

Take his seemingly straightforward veal and spinach ravioli ($15, half order $8). Orgasmic doesn't quite do it proper justice, bathed as it is in a sinful yet exquisitely simple sage butter. A pappardelle with lamb shank ($16) is miraculously flavourful despite its apparent lack of sauce; a similar problem shows up in an otherwise fantastic fettuccine alla Bolognese ($16) and ditto the potato ravioli with braised rabbit ($16). Despite the unsaucy trend, the only real miss in the bunch was a texturally challenged grilled calamari ($13) oddly stuffed with sodden breadcrumbs, garlic, sundried tomatoes and olive paste. Not exactly fit for a king.

But you'd happily pay a king's ransom for a sample of the monkfish osso bucco ($23). It's impressive enough that the thick slab is properly moist, but what makes it truly inspired is the accompanying braised veal. Chef even goes to the trouble of making his own pork sausage ($18), fragrant with fennel seed and partnered with a medley of wild mushrooms. Yet another kitchen coup. A tasty-but-tough hunk of veal liver ($18), sided with pancetta and apples, gets a passing grade.

And what trat would be complete without pizza? The Saporito ($16) - a razor-thin pie topped with the pork sausage, thinly sliced potato and a judicious smattering of gorgonzola - is delicious.

If something needs to be rethought it's the desserts (all $10), though they still merit some praise. A hazelnut brown-butter cake has an oddly mushy texture, yet its slightly undercooked honey-poached pears and chocolate-fig sauce work well. A vanilla panna cotta alongside cider-poached apples boasts a seldom-seen luxuriant creaminess. But a ricotta cheesecake, albeit smooth, is trounced by a lovely-to-look-at but oddly medicinal tasting lurid-green mint cream. Wheat-grass juice anyone?

Imperia does most things right, including staffing. A tirelessly helpful server goes out of his way to guide and counsel throughout the meal - which made any minor mishaps distant memories. In his words: "I'm not just a vending machine to take orders." From his mouth to servers' ears everywhere.