Donna Perlo knows almost everyone who sets foot in her East Rochester restaurant. She greets most of her regulars as they come in, others she catches on her rounds through the busy dining rooms. A few stop to chat with her as they juggle jackets and take-out containers on the way out the door. But no one leaves Perlo's Italian Grill a stranger. If Perlo has met you once, she'll remember you. That's a real advantage at a restaurant that is so intimately connected to its neighborhood that almost all of the dishes on the menu are named after the regulars who either contributed the recipes, or order them again and again.

Open for a little more than nine years, Perlo's has the ambiance of a much older restaurant. Blocky and unassuming from the outside, the restaurant is a rambling string of oddly shaped dining rooms that divide what would otherwise be an overwhelming space into three rooms and a bar that quickly fill to capacity on the weekends. At times, it feels like you have found your way to a family reunion or church supper rather than a restaurant - everyone seems to know everyone else. There's even a karaoke machine in the bar on Friday nights so that folks can embrace their inner Frank or Babs.

The walls of the main dining room are lined with photos and memorabilia of Perlo's family, and most of the food coming out of the kitchen is made according to recipes passed down from them, including the restaurant's all-important red sauce. One of the indications that a red sauce is homemade is that it is slightly different every time you taste it, full of variations that can be chalked up to when the sauce was made, who made it, and what mood they happened to be in that day. For instance, on a recent Friday night, Perlo's red sauce had good body and a rich tomato flavor, but it was also entirely too salty, as if someone had perhaps dropped a bouillon cube into it. Three days later, the same sauce was much mellower and far better balanced, making it a good accompaniment to Perlo's lasagna, but still a bit too strong to warrant mopping up with a handy crust of bread.

That's a pity, because one of the things a slightly less aggressive red sauce would be perfect with is Perlo's stuffed bread ($8), an inspired combination of shredded pork, Italian sausage, and the beef used to flavor the red sauce baked inside a dense, toothsome dough. Reminiscent of the pepperoni rolls that I grew up with, this appetizer, named for John and Mary Pavone, was one of the high points of my first visit to Perlo's.

The lasagna ($11) was the highlight of my second visit. I've never quite understood who decided that a single order of lasagna should easily be able to serve three or four hungry diners, but his or her influence is clearly apparent at Perlo's - each portion is roughly the size of a patio paving stone. Perlo's combines the ground beef with ricotta and herbs (rather than separating them in different layers, as is often done), and it works well, allowing the juices and fat to mingle as the dish cooks. Where the red sauce had been too powerful with the stuffed bread, here it provided a good shot of salt and acidity to counter the fat and cream in the filling.

I found the red sauce at Perlo's to be a bit overwhelming. The marinara, on the other hand, is fresh, bright, and tangy -- good enough to warrant eating with a spoon. Full of chunks of sweet tomato along with just the right proportion of garlic, herbs, and salt, Perlo's marinara is good with just about anything. The marinara is particularly fine when served alongside the restaurant's superb arancini, golden-fried balls of rice bound with a creamy mixture of cheese, finely chopped prosciutto, and peas ($8). But it was also wonderful served on its own atop a plate of gemelli, or as the sauce on a plate of nicely fried eggplant parmesan ($10).

In addition to Southern Italian classics, Perlo's offers a full range of Italian steakhouse dishes, including veal, chicken, beef, and pork, as well as seafood. We tried the veal scallopine ($16), one of the simplest veal preparations, and found it a bit underwhelming for the price. The portion was very generous, but both the texture of the meat and the appearance of the pasta gave us the impression that the finished entrée had been sitting under the lights in the kitchen for a long time before being delivered to us. That said, the marsala sauce was well made and the spinach at the bottom of the dish provided a nice bitter counterpoint to the richness of a sauce replete with butter.

Gordy and Star's Beans and Greens ($13), with both gnocchi and Italian sausage, were much more successful and entirely satisfying. The sausage added just the right pork and spice flavor to the buttery gravy in which the gnocchi, cannellini beans, and sautéed escarole luxuriated.

My experience with Perlo's meatballs ($2 each) was distinctly mixed. I first ordered one as an accompaniment to a plate of gemelli with marinara sauce. The ball that I got was dense, somewhat dry, and a quarter of it was scorched and inedible. I pointed this out to Perlo, and she quickly swept the offending meatball away and brought back two meatballs in its place. The replacements were larger, fork tender, juicy, and very well flavored with distinct notes of pork, beef, and veal in each bite. If there hadn't been two of them, I might have had to order a third to see which of the meatballs I was served was an aberration. Happily, I think I can say with a fair degree of confidence that the replacements were the rule rather than the exception. Order them with marinara, ask for some extra bread, and you've got all you need for a truly satisfying supper.

Perlo's Italian Grill

202 N Washington St, East Rochester

248-5060, perlosrestaurant.com

Monday-Saturday 4-10 p.m., Sunday 4-8 p.m.