ROCCO'S on 22nd is New York's first meta-restaurant.

Diners know the place, and clamor for a table in it, not because they are desperate to eat linguine with clam sauce in the Flatiron district but because they want to step into the world of ''The Restaurant,'' the six-part reality soap opera that recently ran on NBC and made a star of Rocco DiSpirito, its chef.

For the price of a meal, they can get a kiss from Mama, Mr. DiSpirito's mother, hear the manager break into a Neapolitan song and have their picture taken with one of the waiters. In this alternative universe, it's the diners who are nobodies and the waiters who are famous.

Serious diners cannot enter Rocco's without a sense of foreboding. The series made a point of showing how awful the food was in the early days, and then forgot to erase the impression in later episodes.

The entire project, both ''The Restaurant'' and the restaurant, seemed cynical, a coldly sentimental tribute to the kind of home-style Italian-American cooking that Mr. DiSpirito grew up on, with a jokey menu featuring dishes like Mama's meatballs and Uncle Joe's sausage and peppers.

The ''Goodfellas'' décor, with marble-pattern mirrors and an enormous mural depicting the Bay of Naples in colored beads, does not inspire confidence. Fun is fun -- and Rocco's really is a lot of fun -- but eventually everyone has to eat the food on the plate.

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It's pretty good. Early on, this was not so. The squishy pasta and bumbling service that enchanted viewers lived on for a while after the cameras left. But as the more hopeless members of the team departed, the restaurant got down to the actual work of preparing and serving food, and at the moment most of it is more than respectable.

Mama's meatballs, juicy and mildly spiced, are about as good as meatballs can get, which is not saying a lot, but that's the level of ambition at Rocco's. Zucchini flowers stuffed with melted ricotta are a little oily, but that's the house style. Lots of oil, lots of garlic and a ton of sauce are inscribed in Rocco's DNA.

Clams oreganata are bready, but that's the nature of the dish. There's breading, and then there's breading. Rocco's is fine, well-spiced and ideal for soaking up clam juice. House-cured duck prosciutto, chewy and gamy, is a standout on the restaurant's short list of salumi, or cured meats. Arancini, or deep-fried rice balls, are very bland and need more outside crunch, and Uncle Joe makes a dry, not very flavorful sausage. The sweet, very juicy peppers almost make up for it. A classic salad of sliced prosciutto, melon and figs, with a few shavings of Parmesan cheese, could serve as a model for midprice Italian restaurants all over town. All the right flavors and textures were present and accounted for.

Almost all the pasta is egregiously oversauced. Get used to it. That's the style. Tart mini-tomatoes, each one delivering a little stab of flavor, make the very simple fusilli pomodorini something out of the ordinary. Salt-cured olives and anchovies, as one might predict, make an otherwise fine, highly concentrated puttanesca sauce almost too salty to eat, despite the wonderfully firm handmade linguine. Linguine with clam sauce, garlicky enough to take your breath away, does the job right.

There is a danger in paying homage to home cooking. I realized it when I dined at Rocco's with an Italian-American friend, who turned a sharply critical eye on everything that was placed in front of her. The polenta with cheese, rich and creamy, seemed terrific to me. Wrong, apparently. Cheese in polenta? Mom didn't make it that way, therefore it was impossible. Overruled by the rest of the table, she relented. ''The trouble with eating home cooking in a restaurant is that it's not your home,'' she concluded with a sigh. The rest of us will not have to exorcise the ghosts of pastas past.

Rabbit cacciatore, smothered in a deep tomato sauce packed with strong-flavored olives, makes just about the best case on the menu for bringing back the old standbys. The rabbit completely overshadows the overcooked duck in a thin, apologetic sauce with a few soggy cherries. It has only one serious rival on the entree list, giant shrimp grilled until a pungent, smoky aroma penetrates right into the interior. The flavoring is minimal, a few squirts of lemon juice and a scattering of herbs.

Mama returns on the dessert list, with a sky-high, raisin-studded home-style cheesecake in a double-thick crust. It's light-bodied, halfway between firm and creamy, and it makes a noble counterpart to the now-famous meatballs. The zeppole are just average. Speed by and proceed directly to the raspberry jam tart, sweetly chewy and nicely complemented by a scoop of semineutral vanilla gelato.

Rocco's drops the shtick when it comes to the wine list, which does not include Chianti in a straw flask. Instead, at fairly moderate prices, it offers a tour of regional Italian wines, with lots of attention lavished on Campania, the DiSpirito ancestral home. Better yet, the dessert menu includes an extensive list of grappas and amare, or bitter digestives, highly recommended after an all-out assault on the Rocco's menu. One glass of Nonino's powerfully herbal amaro, and you're almost ready to go for an extra serving of spaghetti and meatballs. Try it. Mama might run out and give you an extra hug.

Rocco's on 22nd

* [Rating: One Star]

12 East 22nd Street; (212) 353-0500.

ATMOSPHERE -- Homespun Italian-American food in a large, bustling dining room with kitschy décor.


RECOMMENDED DISHES -- Crispy lemony shrimp, Mama's meatballs, duck prosciutto, grilled shrimp, rabbit cacciatore, soft polenta, fusilli pomodorini, cheesecake, raspberry jam tart.

SERVICE -- Friendly and snappy.

WINE LIST -- A solid, almost entirely Italian 75-bottle list with most selections $35 to $65. A good selection of digestifs and grappas.

HOURS -- Monday through Thursday, 5:30 to 11 p.m., and Friday and Saturday, 5:30 to midnight.

PRICE RANGE -- Appetizers, $3 to $12; pastas, $14 to $19; entrees, $19 to $26; desserts, $6 to $7.

CREDIT CARDS -- All major cards.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS -- Restrooms on dining level.


(None) Poor to satisfactory

* Good

** Very good

*** Excellent

**** Extraordinary



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