The day that New York gets tired of its evergreen every-block favorite, the Italian restaurant, is still pretty far off, but there are signs of it on the horizon. New restaurants, uptown and downtown, are invigorating their Italian menus with a variety of ploys, such as the unusual regional specialties and creative hybridizations. I’ve recently eaten at Matilda, a restaurant that merges Tuscan and Mexican traditions; Insieme, whose menu is split into modern and classical Italian cuisine, and Spiga, which offers inventions such as a porcini ice cream appetizer.

Tre is yet another new rustic Italian spot that tries to entice hip Ludlow Street customers with offbeat twists and flavors from other cuisines, one effect of which is a lightening of the often-heavy dishes it revisits. A tile of raw tuna tartare ($14) — not maximally Italian to start with, though the menu calls it “tartara di tonno” — has the faint bitterness of sesame, plantain chips to scoop with, and droplets of peanut sauce that give it a decidedly Asian feel. To be sure, that’s an extreme case. A quartet of warm grilled sardines ($11) comes scintillatingly paired with pretty pink grapefruit segments, a juicy encapsulation of the bittersweet flavor that history has proved so nicely complements these fish. Heavily cumin-spiked chips of lotus root are a less felicitous addition to the dish.

Chef Giuliano Matarese cuts a sphere of burrata — cream-filled mozzarella — into thirds. Classically fresh burrata is rich and subtle enough to be enjoyed on its own, or with a little tomato; here the three pieces ($12) are carefully decorated. One comes on a piece of puff pastry with roasted tomato and a taro chip; one is dotted with pomegranate seeds (a favorite Tre garnish) and ham, and the third is draped with a sardine filet and skewered with a plastic pipette — a signature of avant-garde cooking — filled with chorizo oil.

In spicing up his food with modern touches, Mr. Matarese sacrifices a lot of the comforting advantages of traditional heartiness on the altar of cleverness. Fortunately, he’s a very skillful artisan, and where his imagination can’t improve a dish, his technique does. In a main course of cavatelli ($16), dense, thick worms of house-made pasta that typically cry out for a rich sauce are spiked with bright chipotle instead of mired in cream, and a piquant foam of broccoli rabe floats on top like a vegetable from another planet. Tiny mussels nestle almost unnoticed among the pasta. A dish of “calamarata” ($16) apes the dimensions of the squid appetizer, with ring-shaped pasta bands that fit neatly around the excellent lamb meatballs. The meatballs, despite appearances, are the point of the dish; the pasta hoops, despite a thin coating of pesto, wind up tasting a bit too dry and floury. But they’re a rare disappointment. Skate ($19) has a lovely crisp texture, given earthiness by puréed cauliflower and exoticism by a rim of bright, butter curry sauce. The dish shows a subtler side of the chef. A roast chicken breast ($17) tastes like an import from the Caribbean: It sits on a bed of smoky-flavored black beans and alongside a nest of super-garlicky sautéed spinach, topped with plantain chips.

Wine can often be a secondary focus at casual Italian spots, but Tre has an interesting list, with an emphasis on organic wines. A very lightly effervescent red made from the Italian bonarda varietal is dry, elegant, and served cool, with elaborate floral notes. Portugal’s Quintas dos Grilos 2003 is almost black, stony and peppery and a scintillating companion to food.

For dessert, there’s a fine fluffy cheesecake doused with syrup-preserved cherries ($9) or, more in keeping with the avant-garde mode, a trio of miniature panna cottas ($9): The best of the three I got had the stimulating flavor of caffã corretto, coffee, and anise.

Typically, at restaurants that throw around ingredients and pipettes as willfully as is done here, I’m used to having every element on the plate painstakingly recited for me when it’s set down by the server. At Tre, the servers offer no more explanation than a smile, and they don’t change the silverware between courses either: The restaurant retains a lot of these pleasant casual trappings of its trattoria heritage, but it rises far above them.

Tre (173 Ludlow St., between East Houston and Stanton streets, 212-353-3353).