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You don’t go to Biricchino for the scene. You go for the sausage. The Northern Italian trattoria’s frosted-glass sconces and mirrored walls cast a deli-like brightness on its 30 pink-and-black granite tabletops and matching floor. It’s ugly. The sausages, on the other hand, achieve what could be Plato’s ideal of intestine-wrapped meat. Among decent handmade pastas, unexceptional salads (save for the arugula with air-cured beef and Parmesan) and less-than-successful treatments of steaks, chops and seafood, are a half-dozen examples of ground and stuffed pleasure. The assortimento of the day, five grilled, cigar-sized links, might be any of dozens of varieties that change daily, from old-school Italian pork or lamb with rosemary and red wine to newer-fangled combinations, such as chicken with jalapeño or veal with raisins and grappa. Fusilli with spicy sausage and broccoli rabe, a tad light on greens, abounds with tender, garlicky morsels of pork. And stewed lentils make a hearty bed for whole links of the stuff. A mostly Italian wine list offers a small selection of moderately priced reds and whites from all regions of the boot. Join the lunchtime business crowd and stop by the adjacent Salumeria Biellese (meat shop), where you can purchase the fresh sausages and cured meats that Biricchino features—expertly made since 1925. — Colleen McKinney

Assortimento di salsiccie alla griglia, $9.95; tiramisu, $6.95