Italian, family-style dining doesn’t have to be a cliché. It can mean a surprising spot like Tony’s DiNapoli. Established in 1959 on East 83rd St.

It’s everything that most family-style eating places are not. It’s a place of crystal chandeliers, tufted banquettes, white table cloths, red Cinzano lamps, massive pillars, beamed ceilings, a large, spotless, stainless steel kitchen and a discretely lighted downstairs room with a wall of wine.

More importantly, unlike the many mass-production, factory-like Times Square restaurants, Tony’s is as friendly and comfortable as the 83rd Street original that’s in a less frenetic, commercial area. We even had a singing waiter, actor-producer Dale Badway, whose strong voice adds to the rollicking scene at Tony’s.

The executive chef who presides over fourteen or fifteen assistants really knows Italian food. His renditions of Southern Italian pasta, seafood, veal and chicken classics provide quality, as well as the quantity, typical of Italian family style. Speaking of quantity, all platters are, according to the menu, supposed to serve “2 to 3 people,” I found that to be a modest claim. Many are adequate for four diners. More than half of two desserts, for instance, were returned uneaten by four once-hungry eaters.

Prices for these gargantuan platters are very un-Times Square-like. Just one of the pasta dishes we sampled, a robust rigatoni vodka, thick with mushrooms for $16 would be more than enough dinner for two starving diners. The other entrée sampled, Tony’s veal chop, was two huge slabs of pounded meat, lightly breaded, covered with cool, cubed tomatoes.

Lightly breaded too was an order of fried zucchini cut in the shape of thin cucumber slices or potato chips rather than strips or bars as is usual. They proved to be float-off-the-plate terrific (and at $8, a real bargain). Other starters worth mentioning were the shrimp Luciano, about a dozen, big butterflied shrimp in a garlicky, lemony, white wine and butter sauce; jumbo, homemade stuffed mushrooms and Tony’s salad, a simple, refreshing amalgam of fresh arugula and tomato.

The desserts were especially formidable. The chocolate decadence cake, for instance, is really two oblong cakes, covered by whipped cream with a layer of vanilla ice cream between them while the towering strawberry short cake sports abundant whipped cream, has a layer of sauced strawberries and is topped with fresh berries.

147 W. 43rd St. btw. Broadway & 6th Ave., 212-221-0100