Rum banana chocolate cake is soaked in rum and drizzled with caramelized bananas and chocolate ganache.

Benjie Sanders / Arizona Daily Star

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The announcement of a new Italian restaurant in Tucson is about as exciting as heralding the arrival of a new Mexican outpost: The genre is quickly becoming ubiquitous.

But our curiosity was piqued when Steven Schultz, the genius behind Red Sky Café's eclectic fusion of French, California and Southwest cuisines, announced last summer that he planned to open Luna Bella in the space briefly occupied by the failed French venture Bistro Philippe.

Luna Bella, which opened Oct. 10, is doors down from Red Sky, which allows Schultz to concentrate his efforts on both equally. At least that was our conclusion after two recent visits to Luna Bella. The attention to detail in service and flavors hinted at a caring, expressive hand that we have come to appreciate from Schultz.

Luna Bella's focused menu has inventive flashes that separate it from Tucson's dozens of other Italian eateries. A simple Caesar salad ($7), for example, is dressed up with pepperoncinis and shaved Parmesan, then kicked in the romaine with a pronounced anchovies saltiness. Jumbo prawns are wrapped in crispy pancetta ($10.50) and set atop a decadently rich herb butter sauce cut with pinot grigio. House soups ($3 cup, $5 bowl) should come with a warning: highly addictive. On a recent weekday lunch visit, a creamy tomato bisque puréed just enough to leave fine chunks of tomato and garlic, vied for attention with an earthy porcini mushroom spiked with cream.

Schultz's reputation may account for a bustling evening crowd on a recent Monday and an equally busy weekday lunch two weeks later. The spacious wrap-around dining room outfitted with an array of awkward half-moon booths and tables had a steady stream of diners on both visits. At dinnertime, a half-dozen patrons sat in the lounge, where appetizers are half price daily from 4 to 7 p.m.

But word has surely gotten out by now about the food, especially the succulent arctic char ($20) stuffed with a crab-shrimp mousse served with creamy risotto. The mousse added an additional sweetness to the firm fish, a close cousin of salmon. A lemon-kissed Chardonnay butter drizzled on top added a luxuriant splash.

Barolo wine laces a sauce of porcini mushrooms and cipollini onions dressing the braised veal osso bucco ($24), a tender hunk of fall-apart-at-the-seams meat. The veal is simmered in the sauce and takes on the amber hues from the wine and mushrooms.

Luna Bella's menu also had standby dishes you can find at less adventurous restaurants, from chicken Parmesan ($14) to a variety of pasta dishes that included a disappointingly gloppy fettuccini Alfredo ($14).

Italian is best achieved when left to its simplest devices, which Schultz proved with a simple execution of cappellini with meatballs ($7 for a child's portion). The dense meatballs were a mix of pork and veal, and the pasta, dressed in a fresh-from-the-garden tomato sauce, was surprising al dente — surprisingly because cappellini is so thin it is easily the victim of overcooking.

The kitchen shines on its creative daily specials that draw from all sides of the menu — pastas, salads and entrees. During our lunch visit, the special of grilled sea scallops on a bed of field greens was worth twice the $12.95 asking price. Four meaty scallops, marinated in ground pepper, lemon and olive oil, were grilled long enough to leave an inviting crust. They sat atop a garden-fresh field of greens, fresh basil, cucumbers, thin-sliced radishes, green and red peppers, Greek olives and feta cheese, all judiciously dressed in a lime-kissed vinaigrette.

The salad exceeded all our expectations for freshness and creativity, so we overlooked that our tea glass had lipstick smudged on the outside. Our server graciously apologized (no one at our table was wearing lipstick), although there was no mention or gesture to make amends.

The dessert offerings ($7) went a long way to erase the incident, although we wished the serving sizes were more generous. The rum banana chocolate cake, a sponge cake soaked in rum and drizzled with caramelized bananas and a thin chocolate ganache, was a four- to five-bite affair, while the rich gelato, most made in-house, was two small scoops.