One good reason to dine alone at Insieme: The wine book is a gripping, uproarious summer read. One reason not to: Without a companion to gaze at, you’re reduced to staring either into the unlovely white-on-gray dining room or out a low-set window at the ankles of families photographing each other against the backdrop of Times Square. Regardless, the new restaurant is worth a trip.

The creation of Marco Canora, chef and owner of Hearth, Insieme is an Italian restaurant with an interesting conceit. The menu is divided into halves: On the left, Old World dishes such as linguine with clams; on the right, modern creations involving raw fish and Asian seasonings. It’s a smart approach, with something to please all comers — the restaurant, in the Michelangelo Hotel, gets an interestingly heterogeneous crowd — but the two cuisines are neatly separated, so mixing and matching is easy, but optional. Each side of the menu lists three courses, a first, a middle, and a main, although most appetites will be happy with only two of the three.

The star of the left-side starters is a tangy fritto misto ($15) showcasing the finest pieces of veal. It takes a sure touch to bread and fry calf’s liver without creating a greasy lump, but Insieme does a flawless job, not just with liver but also with the animal’s tongue, a thin slice of its delicate meat, and a remarkable, fluffy-textured sweetbread. All are light and crisp, with no need for the usual mitigating squeeze of lemon, but the various meats maintain their unique characters as well. A beef appetizer from the right-hand side of the menu is more complex but less satisfying: strips of pedigreed beef wrapped around asparagus spears, floating with rich cheese-filled ravioli in a beef broth that’s strongly perfumed with Chinese star anise.

Insieme’s traditional lasagna ($16 for a small portion, $26 for a large) was one of the meal’s few disappointments. It’s supposed to be a rich, luxurious dish, but it takes one cue too many from the lighter-tasting modern side of the menu. The green spinach pasta is layered with underflavored meat ragu and a skimpy smidgen of bechamel sauce, too little to offer the dish the richness it needs, and the ragu’s bits of meat are tough. The New World menu’s contributions to the middle course are considerably better. A super-creamy risotto ($16/$26) has a Japanese influence: It’s laced with smoked bonito tuna and capped with whole lobes of raw sea urchin that are considerably fresher and sweeter than the sushi standard. Grassy, aromatic chamomile, crushed into the dough, subtly flavors farfalle pasta ($16/$26), the heart of a marvelous, memorable vernal composition that also features meaty morsels of sweetbreads, tiny morels, and lots of butter.

A main course of lamb, in four acts ($36), has the same sense of harmony. There’s a fat-rimmed, salty chop; bright pink, wildly tender medallions cut from the loin; unusual lamb breast, with the lean, hearty character of the shank; and, sneakily stuffed inside plump morels, delicately herb-scented ground lamb. Back in the Old World section, a lesso misto ($32), mixed boiled meats, steals the show from stodgier fare such as a fish stew and a $78 Tuscan steak for two. The meats, whose identities are discreetly left off the printed menu, include a round of house-made cotechino] sausage; a slab of deep red cheek meat from a Piedmont cow; a succulent slice of tongue, and, outclassed by its neighbors, a white, somewhat insipid lozenge of chicken. The foursome bathes in a rich broth and comes with three “condimenti tipici”: chopped herbs in oil, horseradish cream (fantastic with the cheek), and mostarda, a neon-orange gel of candied fruits stewed with hot mustard, which looks like it may be more at home on the modern side of the menu, but makes delicious sense in this context.

The dessert list continues the half-andhalf division into old and new, right down to cheese and coffee. Pastry chef Amadou Ly makes a dozen desserts (all $10), split into the two categories. The winner, by customer consensus, is the old-school bomboloni: amazing puffy yeast fritters, plump and light, dusted with sugar and filled with vibrant vanilla custard; they’re good enough on their own to make one ignore the excellent dark chocolate sauce provided for dipping. The other side of the list is less impressive, with a dry textured semolina cake whose center contains a minuscule pocket of chocolate, as well as a couple of stiff, frothy mousse affairs, in hazelnut and honey.

Paul Grieco, co-owner and sommelier, has put together the same sort of wine book that entertains at Hearth. To call it a list is unjust; it’s full of whimsical digressive essays without a whiff of hard salesmanship. It catalogs a wide-ranging collection full of eccentric choices, like Jacques Puffeney’s Savagnin ($65), a wine with the hot intensity of dry sherry; or, as Mr. Grieco would have it, “just dirty and funky and super sexy.”

Insieme (777 Seventh Ave., between 50th and 51st streets, 212-582-1310).