When restaurants falter, they’re not easily forgiven, like the wayward suitor who begs for a second chance. We took such a chance on Cinque Terre last week, with some friends in tow whose unhappy experiences when it first opened kept them from returning.

It’s true. For a short period in its early days, the restaurant had quickly declined in both service and food quality, not a good thing for an establishment also known for its high pretensions and high prices.

But the seeds had already been planted for this dining spot to grow into what it is today. And in the last year I’ve enjoyed many dinners there under the new regime. In fact, there’s no other restaurant in the Portland area that serves such refined northern Italian cuisine as Cinque Terre. I assured my friends, still skeptical, that they wouldn’t be disappointed.

We arrived at 7:30 and were shown to our table immediately. Only six other diners were at tables. I was concerned to see so cheerless a room, but our waiter said that this time of year is often quiet.

Time, however, proved him wrong. By 8 pm, the downstairs room was nearly packed with an attractive local crowd who seemed to drift in from the cold on cue to impart a convivial mood to a somber stage.

Part of the makeover last year included a modest redesign of the interior. The room itself is inherently attractive, with high ceilings, brick walls, and the great big steel-cased window overlooking Wharf Street. But a local design firm was hired to redo the bar area. The resulting design offsets the open kitchen with a dramatically installed copper canopy between the two spaces. The addition of banquette seating, with extravagant striped fabric, lends a playful feeling seldom found in other dining rooms around town.

I hadn’t been to Cinque Terre in several months and I was thrilled by the menu, with choices that were not just new, but novel. We studied it for a long while until we ordered our first and second courses. Unfortunately, as a group, we all gravitated to the same selections. I was disappointed in not being able to graze amongst a greater variety of dishes.

The tally wound up that two of us had both ordered the carpaccio starter and two had the sformatino. For second courses, two of us ordered the grilled venison and the other half settled on the same pasta dish. How boring. I suggested that perhaps we should try other dishes. But everyone seemed quite content and I left well enough alone.

I’ve had the carpaccio here many times and always found it sliced too thickly for my tastes. That night, it was paper thin and delicious.

My first course, sformatino, was highly unusual-- a splendidly conceived dish with complex taste and texture. Sformatino means pie in Italian cooking, and can be most anything. Here, it was a flan of winter squash, encased in the most delicate kind of crust and served with a remarkable celery sauce. Beyond its high flavors, it was presented in a palette of pastels: the muted orange-yellow of the squash was set off by a celadon-tinged celery sauce.

It was one of the most memorable dishes I’ve had in a long time, and I hope it stays on the menu so I can have it again and again.

My entrée was grilled venison, a starkly welcoming contrast to the first course. I love venison for its leanness and gamey flavors. It was simply grilled, served on a bed of farro, an excellent and tasty grain that’s a mainstay of Tuscan cooking, and topped with a cold salad of shredded red beets. The beets were the kicker in this dish. Highly flavored, deeply red and the fact that it was served cold to grace such a robust alliance created an unusual contrast that worked. I will remember the beets so prepared and include it in my home menus more often.

The other main course at our table was pappardelle. This was no ordinary pasta dish of flat, wide noodles but rather a union of white truffles and richly braised duck. If ever there was a luxurious method to the madness of truffles and duck, this was it personified. The duck imparted a strong, clean gamey taste to the dish, while the woodsy perfume of white truffle added a pungent, heady aroma, like a splash of earth.

We each had one glass of wine, no dessert and still managed to ring up a hefty three-figure tab. But for such stylish, urbane dining, and the chance to reacquaint friends with one of Portland’s finest restaurants, the expense seemed justified.

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