The Emilia-Romagna region of Italy is so famous for its food exports that its recipes can get short shrift. The region, Tuscany’s northern neighbor, includes Parma, renowned for its Parmigiano and its prosciutto; Modena, birthplace of balsamic vinegar; and Bologna, which has a sausage named after it. Via Emilia, named for a Roman road and right off the Park Avenue South restaurant thoroughfare, sets out to do the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna justice. Actually, it set out several years ago. This is the second incarnation of the restaurant, which until recently stood just a block south. The new location is colorful and airier, but some of what made the restaurant special seems to have fallen away. A few of the unique specialties, like beer-marinated chicken, and calzagatti, a fried polenta pancake with beans and pancetta, are gone from the menu, replaced with decidedly non-unique dishes like steamed mussels and grilled-chicken salad, and an expanded section of meat and fish main courses, never the restaurant’s strength.

Via Emilia does a handsome job with the cuisine’s most famous ambassadors, bolognese meat sauce and fresh-made stuffed pastas, but less recognizable specialties like interesting breads and vegetable preparations, are great fun. Pastas, which occupy the largest and tastiest section of the menu, are instantly recognizable as fresh-made. The tagliatelle with bolognese ($12) could hardly be better, its sturdy egg noodles swathed in a meat sauce that’s simultaneously light and deeply layered with flavor. A big slab of lasagna ($16) demonstrates the power of the cuisine even more effectively. This isn’t the tall, tomato- and cheese-engorged southern Italian casserole; it’s a more graceful northern creation, a low, rich stack of chewy pasta sheets layered with chunky, pork-enriched ragu and creamy, Parmigiano-laced bechamel. The top-notch pasta is a crucial element, giving the dish not just its structure but flavor, too.

The quality of the noodle material makes a difference in the array of stuffed pastas too. Tortelloni, an extra-large version of tortellini, are remarkably good, filled with surprisingly candy-sweet pumpkin puree tinged with warm spice and bathing in light cream sauce ($12.50). The contrast between inside and outside, the lush fruit filling and the thick, cheese-dusted pasta wrapper, is a rare treat.The chef makes a host of other tortellini and tortelloni as well, stuffed with things like chicken and mushrooms, prosciutto and Parmigiano, and ricotta. After a few successes, I was confident enough in the quality of the pasta to order the plainest preparation, skinny tagliolini dressed with just balsamic and grated Parmigiano ($11), but it didn’t quite hold up.Neither of the hometown favorites, the cheese or the vinegar, steps up to the plate, and the warm, wet, brownish heap — all the pasta portions are extra-large — tastes primarily of starch.

Apart from the pastas, the most memorable dishes are unusual starters like gnocco fritto ($8): half a dozen hot, fist-sized hollow puffs of fried dough, designed to be torn apart with an exhalation of steam and eaten with cold cuts. Borlengo ($7.50) is a crisp, papery crepe folded around pancetta and cheese. The salty, compelling street snack looks shareable, but after a bite or two everyone at the table realizes they want the whole thing. Cotechino ($8) is a boiled sausage typical of the region, with a hammy taste and loose texture that’s not to everyone’s liking. The priciest appetizer ($15) is sheer regional pride on a plate: a sliced pear topped with a hearty crumbling of firm, tangy Parmigiano-Reggiano and a modest drizzle of 25-year-old barrel-aged balsamic vinegar, a dark, syrupy, complex brew that’s at least as far from supermarket vinegar as 2006 is from 1981, when it first went into its casks. I can only imagine how tasty this little showpiece would be with a truly good pear. In a terrific soup of the day, mushrooms and parsley are pureed into a brothy, flavorful murk in which hot fried ricotta dumplings float ($8). Fresh corn kernels, sauteed to a sweet, balsamic brown ($7), make a superb side dish.

For such a serious culinary region, Emilia-Romagna makes a lot of silly wine. Sparkling, rubeous, and served in tumblers, a dozen different lambruscos headline a short list of wines from the region. Half of them are poured by the $7 glass, a happy opportunity to get to know a frivolous beverage. Dessert can be skipped, but one, at least, stands out: a plate of hot, chewy almond cookies capped with a scoop of eggy, boozy zabaglione-flavored gelato ($8.50).

The poorest section of the menu is a central one: main courses. Especially after a big, delicious pasta course, there’s no need even to look at them. Three chicken legs, smothered “cacciatore-style” in oniony tomato sauce ($14), are not particularly special, but at least they’re moist; a savory filet of grilled bluefish ($16.50) is set atop little cubes of “mixed roasted roots” so desiccated that they might be the same ones I left over when I ordered the same dish at the previous Via Emilia a few years ago. Why these dishes remain on the menu, in the shadow of the rest, is a mystery.

Via Emilia (47 E.21st St.,between Park Avenue South and Broadway, 212-505-3072).