BY LARRY LIPSON> RESTAURANT CRITIC

Bringing a welcome touch of Florence, Italy, to Moorpark, the new Café Firenze appears to have quickly jarred a culinary nerve in the Simi Valley area.

The café's kitchen bakes its own bread, mixes up its own fresh ricotta, makes fettuccine and gnocchi from scratch, grills and sautes thick and juicy steaks, and serves up impressive pasta recipes never before seen in these parts.

The Florentine-emphasized cooking of chef Fabio Viviani at its best here results in a whole, deboned free-range chicken plate ($18.95) and a huge, shareable, 38-ounce, dry-aged ribeye steak ($58.95).

We opted however, for the "smaller" ribeye, an excellent Tuscan-style 18-ounce steak ($29.95), served one night, perfectly medium rare as ordered, rubbed effectively with fresh ground pepper, filling a large plate and definitely big enough to provide generous leftovers for a doggie bag.

Ditto on the size of Café Firenze's special lamb osso buco ($24.95), a variation at the same price as the regular veal version, plated with a superbly satisfying saffron risotto and crunchy roasted vegetables.

As for beginnings, the daily soup ($6.95) could turn out to be a "verdura," or true vegetable rendition, a savory harmony of intense, individual flavors. Call it a markedly memorable minestrone.

Platters of prosciutto and melon with mozzarella ($13.95) here differ from the norm, one with the melon cooked and served warm. And there's an alternative prosciutto offering at the same price displaying tasty small rounded pieces of fried bread called "coccoli" and a creamy stracchino cheese. If you like, be canny as we were and ask for cream-infused burrata cheese instead. It's lovely.

Plenty of interesting pastas here. One of the better choices could be the tortellacci di zucca (pumpkin squash and ricotta-stuffed, much like ravioli, $12.95) in a creamy sage and butter sauce.

Of the untried ones, the malfatti dish of spinach gnocchi ($13.95) filled with ricotta cheese and plated with roasted porcinis and speck (smoked prosciutto) sounds like a must for the next time here.

Café Firenze obviously provides a good reason to visit Moorpark, particularly if you haven't had the opportunity to get to Italy lately.

At its best: This multifaceted restaurant-deli-entertainment lounge-coffee shop-juice bar is definitely a huge gastronomic asset to this Simi Valley 'burb, but only as long as it keeps its strong Florentine roots.

Could be better: Separating the somewhat intrusively loud rock music entertainment from the dining room would enhance the totality of the Café Firenze food experience.