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The Beat goes on in North Beach

The San Francisco neighborhood, once the playground of '50s hipsters, still is the place to hang around. And don't forget the Italian food.

SAN FRANCISCO - "Allen Ginsberg slept here," said the Hotel Boheme desk clerk as he filled my sherry glass.

A 1955 photograph of the late poet, smiling as he stood with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady in front of the nearby City Lights Bookstore, had caught my eye. Part of the hand-scrawled caption under the row of rascally looking guys read: "We were just hanging around."

Last November, my husband and I found that, nearly half a century after that photo was taken, "just hanging around" San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood can still evoke the carefree happiness the picture captured.

Like the Beat writers of the '50s, we had been lured here by the European atmosphere, which had been created by a 19-century wave of immigrants who wanted in on the gold rush. It had been the Italians who took hold, staying to open bakeries, cafes and restaurants. This was a great spot to indulge our craving for an Italy fix, sans the rising euro and jet lag.

But between delicious bites, we discovered other appeals of the neighborhood. North Beach is Little Italy blended with a boisterous bar scene that originated during its Wild West Barbary Coast days, with seasoning from the jazzy legacy of the Beat Generation.

This mix is packed into a six- by three-block wedge, bordered by Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and the Financial District. It could be circled on foot in perhaps 20 minutes. But its many enticements are seductive, so we took it slow, hanging around to the pace of its old world rhythms.

The Hotel Boheme on Columbus Avenue (the neighborhood's main drag) was key to making us feel part of the North Beach family. A 15-room hotel formerly favored by transients, it has been expertly remodeled in Bohemian-chic style.

Cozy rooms are romantically decorated and accented by whimsical canopies of mosquito netting over the beds and lampshades decoupaged with faded Beat-era newspaper clippings.

Our second-floor room's bay window looked out on a sidewalk show of local hipsters and sophisticates settling in (to read, write, and drink espresso) at the Caffe Greco, camera-toting tourists being lured into restaurants by enthusiastic aproned waiters and elderly Chinese women in quilted jackets toting bags stuffed with fresh vegetables.

The sweet aroma from Stella Pastry just below us drew us to taste the family's specialty: sacripantina, a heavenly Genovese cake filled with zabaglione cream.

Outside, I found not a chain store or Starbucks in sight. Instead there were many shops that have been run by Italian-American families for generations and that featured hand-made items.

Even my normally impatient husband got into the "hanging around" spirit at Molinari Delicatessen, not flinching when we had to take a number and wait 15 minutes for counter service. It was a pleasure to mingle with other Italian-food enthusiasts, surrounded by shelves crammed with imported pastas, olive oils and wines in the tiny "Since 1896" store that smelled of cured prosciutto and aged cheeses - an aroma the Italians call Piedi di Dio (God's feet).

As we stocked up on souvenirs of house-made salami and hunks of Parmesan, our server tipped us off to the best spot for an afternoon pick-me-up: the Caffe Trieste.

Nowhere was the spirit of la famiglia (the family) stronger than here in the neighborhood's oldest coffeehouse. We settled in at a colorfully tiled table and were joined by a woman visiting from Japan and a local couple who were regulars at the establishment's traditional Saturday afternoon concerts.

We bonded over cappuccino and wine, sharing stories of our Italian travels, as a three-piece band played classics from the Neapolitan songbook and one by one, each member of the cafe family took a solo turn at the mike. By the time Pappa Gianni was belting out Volare, we were joining in with the "Can-tar-e, woa-oh-oh-ohh!" chorus.

Outside it had become a chilly San Francisco afternoon, but here we'd been transported to the sunny Mediterranean.

There are dozens of Italian restaurants, from casual to elegant, in the area. But North Beach has its sorry spots that dish out watery minestrone and mushy, oversauced pastas. However, there's more excellence than mediocrity from which to choose.

In the evenings, the people parade on the sidewalk thickens, as tourists and locals join the North Beach tradition of bar hopping. We decided to hit City Lights Bookstore before having a drink, and we found it to be a golden Saturday-night hangout.

The landmark literary institution began as a publishing house and the first paperback bookstore in the '50s; it showcased the breakthrough writing of the Beat generation.

Though it has expanded to three floors, City Lights retains a sort of subversive-artsy ambience. The place has creaky wooden stairs, worn linoleum on the floors, and the walls are covered with thumbtacked fliers for experimental theatre, political events and readings.

We lost track of time browsing the store's large selection of poetry, foreign titles and literary journals, along with choice classic and modern books.

The customers were equally entertaining: from a fired-up senior launching into a leftist political discussion with the cashier to a young couple snuggling on a bench and cracking up as they thumbed through illustrations in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

We left to have a drink at Tosca, where opera played on the jukebox and artsy types filled the red booths. The house special is called cappuccino but contains no coffee; rather, it is a perfect mixture of hot chocolate and brandy, served in curvy stemmed glasses. It reportedly was invented as a Prohibition cocktail in 1919.

It was just the right nightcap for a neighborhood that blends the heritages of different generations and nations.

- Susan Van Allen is a writer living in Los Angeles.

GETTING THERE: Several airlines offer direct or connecting service between Tampa International Airport and San Francisco.

STAYING THERE: Contact the Hotel Boheme at 444 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94133. Call 415 433-9111, e-mail to mail@hotelboheme.com the Web site is www.hotelboheme.com Room rates run from $149 to $169.

For more lodging options or for other information on the city, contact the San Francisco Visitor and Information Center, 900 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94103. Call 415 391-2000; www.sfvisitor.org/

EATING THERE: We hit on two outstanding places:

An intimate atmosphere attracted us to L'Osteria del Forno. It's a 28-seat storefront, which explained the line of eager customers waiting outside, owned by two women from Bologna and Varese. Diners can watch them bustling about in the open kitchen, cooking fantastic thin-crusted pizzas, baked pastas and roasted meats and vegetables.

The restaurant is at 519 Columbus Ave.; call (415) 982-1124. The Osteria does not take reservations or credit cards and is closed Tuesdays; it is moderately priced for a major city.

We splurged for dinner at the award-winning Rose Pistola. Its menu is a tribute to the Ligurians, the first-wave of Italians who settled here. The wood-burning oven behind the lively bar fills the softly lit dining room with an earthy feel, countered by the soulful sounds of a jazz trio. The restaurant is noted for its cioppino, a fragrant fish stew that includes the Dungeness crab the immigrants found to be plentiful in San Francisco Bay.

The Rose Pistola is at 532 Columbus Ave.; call (415) 399-0499. Reservations are essential, all major credit cards are accepted, and the menu is expensive.

TO DO: Window-shopping highlights included Biordi, chock-full of colorful imported Italian dinnerware, and Macchiarini jewelry, famous for its avant-garde creations.

Upcoming events in North Beach include:

June 19-20: The 50th annual North Beach Street Fair.

July 28-Aug. 1: The 10th annual North Beach Jazz Festival.