In Rhode Island parlance, the new Two Forty Two restaurant and lounge on Atwells Avenue is “where Renaissance used to be.”

New owner David Mardirosian has given the place a makeover, with an enlarged bar and new golden velour sofas in the front room. In the back dining room, the softer beige-dominated color scheme works wonders, making it seem much larger than it had been. Once a rather gloomy looking space, it’s now bright and airy, with cozy butcher block-style tables, striking Southwestern-style chandeliers and, on one wall, a wood-fired pizza oven.

“We aimed for ‘New York and L.A. Style Meets Providence,’ ” said Mardirosian, who previously owned restaurants in Jamaica Plain and Falmouth, Mass. “I didn’t want it to look like Renaissance with a paint job.”

There’s also a new executive chef, Andy Swain. Most recently of Barnsider’s Mile and a Quarter, Swain had previously been the chef at Mardirosian’s Falmouth restaurant, Pesci’s.

Chef has a way with steaks

It was clear from the first bite of my dining companion’s eight-ounce filet mignon, moist and tender and cooked perfectly to the “a touch under medium, but a touch above medium rare” specifications, that Swain has a way with steaks. They’re all cut to order at Two Forty Two, which is also the restaurant’s address on Atwells Avenue, starting at six ounces with a $3 surcharge for every ounce over that.

But red meat is only a small part of Two Forty Two’s menu, which is global in scope: a little bit Italian, a little bit Californian, a little bit Asian, often served up in combinations of one another. Items range from ravioli stuffed with mushrooms, prosciutto and smoked mozzarella to Chilean sea bass, sesame-encrusted sea scallops, grilled pork medallions, duck pot stickers and all those pizzas, here called flatbreads. There are eight varieties of flatbreads cooked in the brick oven from menu specifications … or you can create your own from any combination of available ingredients.

Brick oven pizza, addictive sauce

We tried the Primavera ($12), a plate-filling rectangular pizza, cut into eight slices. It was topped with Asiago cheese, slices of roasted zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms and caramelized onions, all tucked into a most delicious tomato sauce. Sweet and extremely rich, the sauce is made in the kitchen by a reduction of chopped tomatoes cooked with tomato purÉe, garlic, red wine, olive oil and herbs. Order any pizza with this sauce, which Mardirosian says was concocted by his nephew, David Barber, a student at Johnson & Wales, and you’ll wish you’d ordered two. Amazingly, despite the mushy-gooey concoction on top, the very thin crust held its crispness from first piece to last. Mardirosian said all of his restaurants, and all of the houses he’s lived in since boyhood for that matter, have had brick ovens for pizza making, even though he’s not of Italian descent.

Tapenade, bread, seasoned olive oil

Before we could get to the pizza and the steak, a welcoming dish of tapenade arrived at the table soon after we’d sat down. This heady, thick paste, here concocted with mashed garlic, Kalamata olives and artichokes, was just the ticket for spreading on the slices of soft Italian bread that accompanied in a small basket. Tasty as it was, we liked even better the side dish of olive oil which had been infused with red pepper flakes, sage and rosemary. This fragrant mix proved to be wonderful for dipping.

We bypassed the extensive wine list for martinis. My Kir 242, the house signature drink, was a refreshing mix of muddled raspberries floating in a fizzy Prosecco. Not only good to the last drop, it was good to the last raspberry fished out of the bottom of the glass near the end of the meal, sort of a dessert capper. My companion’s Key (Lime) to Her Heart martini was a sweet tropical mix of Stolichnaya Vanil and Malibu coconut rum with a splash of pineapple and lime juices. This could be the key to anyone’s heart.

A Southwest twist on calamari

The menu is laid out with provocative headings. We didn’t engage anything from the Foreplay section — a range of salads, from pesto Caesar to strawberries and plantains mixed with cheese and pine nuts and sprinkled with champagne vinaigrette. Instead we dallied Between the Sheets where the Calamari 242 ($11) tempted. After all, this wasn’t the usual fried calamari with marinara sauce and hot green pepper slices you can find in most places. The good-sized portion was divided in two — half, with a nod to Asia, fried in a light tempura batter; the other half, with a nod to the U.S. Southwest, fried in a blue cornmeal batter. Tender and not at all greasy, the cornmeal batter had a richer flavor, although both versions of the calamari paired well with the cucumber wasabi sauce dip. It was refreshing and on the slightly sweet side, with only a distant hint of the bite you’ll find in the wasabi that’s served as a side to sushi.

From the menu’s Light My Fire section came our wonderful Primavera flatbread, a veritable vegetable garden on a plate. Although we toyed with the menu’s Seductions section, especially the crab sautÉ over farfalle as well as the chicken and prosciutto, it was on to Hot & Steamy, where most of the entrees can be found.

Sweet, sweet potato fries

My companion’s filet mignon was here, starting at $16 for six ounces. Although a variety of Get Saucy sauces was bypassed as potential toppings for the steak, my companion could not resist the seasoned sweet potato fries ($5). They were ordered in the vain hope of finding something akin to a plate of still-memorable sweet potato fries served months ago in a Phoenix restaurant. A business associate from North Carolina, who had also delighted in those Phoenix fries, had written that he’d tried to find them back home. But, alas, whenever he’d ordered them, they hadn’t come close. But — Eureka! — here they were on Atwells Avenue, tasting just as crispy, marvelously seasoned and as wonderfully sweet potato-y as the ones in Phoenix.

My sesame-encrusted sea scallops ($22) arrived with a half dozen enormous scallops on the plate in a dish enthusiastically recommended by our helpful waiter, Rocco. Tender and moist, the scallops had been pan-seared to perfection and topped with a pomegranate balsamic reduction, a heady blend of sweet and tangy flavors, that spilled over onto the plate. On the side, a mound of creamy risotto, sprinkled throughout with bits of mushroom, artichoke hearts and asparagus.

Smashing dessert presentations

The desserts at Two Forty Two are made in house, although the ice cream confection I tried came from elsewhere, then was spiffed up in the kitchen for a smashing presentation. My Exotic Bombo ($7), a luscious mix of mango and passion fruit sorbet with a yolk of raspberry sorbet in the center, was covered in a shell of hardened white chocolate and drizzled with dark chocolate. It sat at one end of a rectangular glass dish, overlooking a puddle of raspberry sauce that was flanked by four small dollops of whipped cream. On one side of the plate, each had been topped by a raspberry, on the other by a blueberry.

My companion’s Italian bread pudding ($7) was an egg custard with large pieces of panatone in it, sitting atop swirls of vanilla and dark chocolate sauce.

“Coffee?” asked Rocco at the end of the meal.

“No. No more room,” we cried.

But we’ll be back, if only for one of those flatbreads and the sweet potato fries.

mjanuson@projo.com