With its charming name -- fun to say without being unpronounceable -- and its caprese color scheme of a red-and-white striped awning with green accents, Lucchesi's, the Heightsarea Italian cafe and grocery, seems movie-perfect. Full name: Lucchesi's in the Heights, 5600 Kavanaugh Blvd. Little Rock, (501) 660-4444.
   But is it too cute for its own good? The best way to tell -- a test of the food quality, absent the homey allure of its source -- could be take-out.
   Make a selection from the refrigerated cases lining the walls on the cozy market area of the space. Except for the gelato or baked-goods selections, it's not true ready-to-eat food -- the display of fresh pastas, which tint the back wall the buttery umber shade people paint their walls when they want to think of Tuscany, require boiling, of course. For a meal requiring even less effort onto the table, fresh lasagna portions are available refrigerated, not frozen.
   Order up: This is take-out, not grocery shopping, so we selected an individual-size portion of the garlic roasted chicken and spinach lasagna ($6.60 for a serving that could serve two at lunch and yield one-and-a-half servings for dinner). And we couldn't resist a tub of the ginger gelato ($5.49), and spent the car ride home excitedly speculating whether it would be sweet or savory.
   Time factor: The time you spend at Lucchesi's before leaving with your meal depends entirely on how long you want to browse: We'll see you in the fall, creamy carrot ginger soup. But on the subject of time, the shopkeeper will recommend heating duration for the microwaveable selections -- 3-4 minutes for our footbridge-shape lasagna portion. She even popped the plastic lid at the corner to demonstrate container ventilation, then immediately apologized for her presumptuousness, although we didn't mind.
   Container integrity: The plastic lid on the sturdy oval container came out of the microwave shot through with a new steam-escape valve. Perhaps we didn't pay enough attention to the demo.
   Hot or Not: Not -- but by design. Microwaving might seem like a step that would make Lean Cuisine out of even the finest-food dish, but the lasagna didn't seem rewarmed; it tasted restaurant-fresh. A more relevant question of heat applied to the gelato. Would it supply that pleasant ginger burn at the back of the throat?
   Final take: The rich, creambased lasagna bulged with tender chunks of chicken and spinach that still tasted earthy and bright. In the Lucchesi universe, it was a rather tame selection: Next time we might opt for the barbecue ravioli -- an inevitable development as our love for smoked meat yields everything but barbecue popsicles. (Barbecue nachos, which for a while remained try-anything-once festival fare, have made it onto the regular menu at places like Whole Hog Cafe.) The market manager recommended the ravioli with any sauce except Alfredo.
   The real find here was the ginger gelato, which, fluffy and cloudlike, seemed less like the Italian treat than homemade vanilla ice cream into which someone had the wonderful foresight to swirl bits of candied ginger. For peppery-sweet nirvana, take a few scoops and dunk them in Reed's Extra Ginger Brew, available by the single bottle at the nearby Boulevard Bread Co. (1920 N. Grant), for a ginger-beer float that will make you all but forget the letters A&W. Spork Report is a monthly take on takeout. E-mail your favorite Styrofoam stop-offs to:
   

kbrazzel@arkansasonline.com

This story was published Friday, September 01, 2006