The massacre of El Cangrejo's restaurants, some excellent and some not, has been awful these past few years. About half of the neighborhood's dining establishments have been forced to close their doors, and the crowds at the ones that have stayed open are noticeably smaller. The mayor's cancellation of the liquor licenses of those who are behind on their city taxes will probably mean a few more casualties in the neighborhood.

And yet, despite this, just behind the Einstein head a most worthy Italian restaurant, Il Leone d'Oro, has opened and attracted a following at a time when others were going out of business.

The ownership is as international as Panama --- Italian-Japanese-Canadian, by way of Venezuela and Italy. The ambience is cozy, the service is top-notch, and the food is excellent. Though I haven't tried the pasta in vodka sauce that I noticed on the menu, from my sampling this restaurant's fare is more authentically Italian than any other I've yet encountered in Panama.

You can say good and bad things about authenticity, but so far as I can tell, only good things about Il Leone d'Oro's version of it. Maybe what I say about authenticity isn't really so noteworthy as that which is spoken in Italian, and I did, in fact, hear Italian being spoken by customers during both of my visits.

I sampled some of their penne in a cheese and mushroom sauce as Luis Arteaga was tuning up for his recent 15th anniversary as a musician gathering at the restaurant. The main thing was the pasta, not, as in Italian-American, the sauce. The couple next to me had the spaghetti with langostinos, at $12 one of the most expensive things on the menu, and the noodles and seafood were the main event, with sauce to complement, not overpower.

At a lunchtime visit with Elida and Nelson, two co-conspirators from the print edition, I had the pizza pescadora, she had the vegetarian pizza, and he chose the ravioli in nut sauce. Before any of the stuff we ordered came, the waiter brought out slices of fresh bread, with butter and a tomato-garlic-cilantro sauce to spread on it.

When lunch came to the table, not long afterwards, the pizza crusts were crispy, not gooey, and the cheese was far more significant than the tomato sauce. The ravioli was in a white sauce with crushed nuts, subtly but deliciously flavored. My pizza had a little sauce, plenty of cheeze, and a topping of shrimp, calamari and octopus.

If you want to splurge in the spending sense, the way to do it at Il Leone d'Oro is by ordering one of their pricier bottles of wine. Even then, thes prices aren't very high --- they offer a tasteful but unpretentious selection of Italian and Chilean wines, in addition to what their full bar has to offer. For a business lunch like ours, however, it's much better to order a glass of the house wine with the meal ($1.50), and maybe do capucchino afterwards.

Il Leone d'Oro is in the spot once occupied by the original El Aleph Cafe , behind the Einstein head statue and a couple of doors away from the Fruteria Mimi. They're open for lunch and dinner, every day but Monday. On Wednesday nights in May there will be live piano music, and more entertainment specials like the bash thrown by Luis Arteaga and friends are being considered. If you want to check up on who's playing when, or make reservations for your larger group, call them at 264-7864 or send them an email at il_leone_doro@hotmail.com.

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