Owner Musa Ulusan (front right) and his brother Metin (front left) have blended a filmmaker’s fantasies with an interesting take on Mediterranean-Italian fare at FELLINI’S CAFÉ

There’s a milkshake at Fellini’s Cafe made with chocolate ice cream, espresso and orange juice. It’s called Satyricon, after the Federico Fellini film. It’s an equally surreal combination of elements – good but psychologically perplexing – only not nearly as dark, except maybe for the espresso. Casanova is another milkshake. I haven’t seen that film, but if it’s anything like the Coca-Cola-spiked shake, it has an unexpected, tingly finish.

  While the milkshakes are the most unusual items on Fellini’s menu, there are innumerable original twists in the Mediterranean and Italian-fashioned selections, including vital flavors and working-man prices. Opened last Sept. 1, Fellini’s seems to be priced for the previous millennium. $1.50 sodas come in 20-ounce plastic bottles, while sandwiches, wraps and rolls all under $9 easily stretch to two meals, and pastas arrive in halved soccer ball-sized bowls.

  It would be incorrect to overextend the comparisons between abstract Fellini films and the cafe’s affordable food. Some dishes do bear his name, but it’s the decor that carries the cinematic scheme. Owner Musa Ulusan is the film buff, I am told. He and his brother Metin hired local artist Michael Fedor to tether the theme with murals on the creamy walls depicting images from various Fellini works: clowns, dreamy women and a soft boy from ancient Rome. A faux marble column juts up in the middle of the main dining room, and a fantastical blend of color swirls from the texturized brown cement floor to the shiny, hand-painted tabletops and sparkly red vinyl diner chairs, on up to the starry ceiling. Plastic beach ware tumblers sum up the cafe’s appeal: novel, big and bright.

  Sunlight glaring through windows all around the restaurant during the day and concentrated brightness from just a few dangling bulbs at night make for cinematic moments in the open space. Take your sunglasses to lunch. But the cheerful and well-planned decorative attempts make for a scene as lonely as an abandoned circus tent when the place isn’t full and bustling. Unfortunately, I never saw the place full and bustling, though weekday lunch business appears to be brisk.

  A friend and I sat at one of two occupied tables late one Sunday morning while better-established brunch spots were queued with apres church-goers and hangover nursers. They should have been there to share our original, lumberjack-portioned breakfast pizza. The first ingredient, butter sauce, sounded like a death warrant, but concern for our arteries took a backseat to taste buds after one slice. The pizza’s toasty brown crust was thin and firm, ample support for the layers of fluffy scrambled egg, crispy bacon crumbles, rosemary-strong Italian sausage and mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.

  Our server didn’t have to admit a hangover. The yearning in his eyes when he delivered the pie, the minute-by-minute coffee refills and his inability to remember anything, including the Coca-Cola in our milkshake, was enough evidence. He was kind, and the shake was delicious without it, so we didn’t prosecute.

  Another server the following evening hardly knew who Fellini was but did fetch the kitchen’s recipe book for questions about the gargantuan appetizer sampler. A spread of blood-red tomato paste was cut with salty feta cheese, meaty traces of walnut and breadcrumbs, and spicy red chili flakes. Meanwhile, roasted eggplant chunky with herbs and garlic, and a simple tahini and lemon hummus also were excellent spreads served with warm, puffed pita. The sampler is a hand-me-down from Angeli on Decatur, another of Musa Ulusan’s business interests.

  Slightly more elaborate dinners set Fellini’s apart from Ulusan’s Quarter cafe, like the Salmon Fellini fettuccine pasta in a chunky tomato and garlic cream sauce. Or the fusilli pasta spiraling in a thin, smoky-red sun-dried tomato pesto sauce with artichoke hearts and soft slivers of the dried tomato. All pasta bowls come flanked with slices of cheesy pizza, an atypical addition that almost compensated for the dry, acrid grilled salmon fillet and the omission of kalamata olives and feta cheese in the other pasta.

  It happened again with the "pancetta" on Fellini’s Special sandwich, a combination of basil pesto, roasted red peppers, spinach and melted mozzarella on a homemade focaccia-style bun. The spicy, cured Italian bacon usually is used more for flavor than as a sandwich meat; in this case, "pancetta" actually was everyday crispy-fried bacon. The sandwich and its few roasted and salty-spiced potatoes were irresistible, but false advertising is always a downer.

  After a few meals at Fellini’s, I learned that while the kitchen might not always be on the ball, Chef Reggie Bozeman’s staff doesn’t skimp on good things like slippery butter sauces, olive oil soaked sandwich bread, and creamy salad dressings. Try the charred lavash roll of juicy sliced lamb, tomato and Romaine lettuce oozing with garlic yogurt sauce, or the Parmesan Caesar salad with big, buttery croutons.

  If the art-house theme at Fellini’s doesn’t move you, the playful details and bright space probably will. And if, like me, you find yourself wanting to return even after some aggravating oversights, it’s probably because it’s difficult to find so much superior, fresh food on one plate for under $10. .