Even if you can't make it to The South Beach Wine & Food Festival this week, you can experience the cuisine of a celebrity chef close to home. Todd English is behind da Campo Osteria , the new Fort Lauderdale restaurant hidden away on the first floor of il Lugano Suites.

The elegant but easily missed hotel on the Intracoastal (just north of Oakland Park Boulevard) is a surprisingly low-profile spot for the Boston-based English, a multiple James Beard Award winner and former PBS host who has built an empire of more than 20 Olives, Figs and other restaurants.

Restaurants with absentee chefs often disappoint, but da Campo Osteria is wonderful, with excellent, straightforward Northern Italian food, tweaked with more complex flavors but not over the top.

The setting is understated but classic, done in warm earth tones with dark hardwood floors and a small bar. A few chairs overlook the bustling open kitchen, with a mammoth hand-crafted copper oven, but go for the stunning Intracoastal view, where you can watch the yachts glide by and wonder, "What recession?"

Service is impeccable, knowledgeable and friendly, starting with the cook who makes mozzarella tableside. He pours hot, salty water into a bowl of cheese curds and, with gloved hands, kneads and stretches them into luxurious strands, forming a small, perfect mound. The cheese is paired with your choice of six accompaniments, such as green and black olive tapenade or smoky prosciutto and figs in a rich balsamic vinegar with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Sop up the juices with the warm, muffin-shaped focaccia or chunks of honey whole wheat bread with raisins and walnuts. And you'll snap up the grissini -- ultra thin, salted breadsticks.

The menu is dominated by antipasti, salads, pasta and flatbreads with eight entrees complemented by an international wine list with about 100 choices, 25 of them by the glass.

If you don't want to splurge on a $45 steak or $32 whole snapper, it's easy to graze on starters like cool red beets dusted with pistachio nuts, finished with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh mint.

The flatbread pizzas have a light, crisp crust. We chose a topping of cremini, oyster and shiitake mushrooms, shaved red onions, fontina and boschetto al tartufo -- a light, milky cheese with bits of aromatic black truffle.

One of our favorite dishes was the agnolotti, a silky, house-made pasta stuffed with roasted butternut squash, a little Parmesan and crumbled amaretto cookies that add a nutty flavor and fragrant sweetness.

The double-cut Niman Ranch pork chop, pounded thin, breaded and served with a black olive and caper relish -- was fine, but not as impressive as the garlic chicken. I rarely order chicken in a restaurant, but this is no ordinary bird. The French heritage breed (Poulet Fermier) is raised organically on a North Carolina farm. A half-chicken comes on the bone in a hearty, garlicky sauce with a whisper of citrus and divine sides of savory, Italian sausage-spiked bread pudding, baby arugula and heirloom tomatoes. (The veggies are from Swank Farms in West Palm Beach.)

My husband's pet peeve is that restaurants almost always overcook shrimp, but here they were perfect, plump and succulent, served in a light cacciatore sauce. Sides are primo, especially the fat wedges of polenta fries and a kicky mix of rapini, escarole and cannellini beans.

Chocoholics can dive into a warm chocolate hazelnut budino or cake, with a molten Nutella center, house-made chocolate-mint gelato and chocolate Rice Krispies (a bit hard to chew). But we like the ricotta doughnuts, airy puffs you can dip into honeycomb gelato and lavender honey.

You may catch a glimpse of English this weekend -- he's expected to attend the SoBe fest. Regardless, da Campo Osteria is in good hands.