RESTAURANT REVIEW : At Melange, Variety Can Be Overused Spice

Ilove brand-new restaurants; there’s always a contagious sense of hope and purpose. The tableware sparkles, the staff is eager to please, and one always picks up yet another ingenious methods of folding napkins. Melange Seafood in Encino is no exception. Oh, the new espresso machine may not be holding up under heavy use, certain items on the menu may take a little longer to prepare than anticipated, but the vision and intent of the restaurant are as clearly and joyfully present as they’ll ever be.

Melange’s fueling concept is all there in its name: it’s a seafood restaurant committed to combining heterogeneous and incongruous elements. Even the sparkling new decor seems inspired by a less-known definition of its name--a melange is also a batch of diamonds of varying sizes. Broken up by zany, angular partitions and jutting false ceilings, the dining room seems somehow to refer to a crystal. Walls of mirrors heighten the geometry to dizzying effect. While these architectural curiosities do provide some privacy for mid-room diners, the space seems more fractured than faceted. It’s best not to look up or about.

The decor leads us to expect spare, clean, even stark seafood cookery. But the menu indicates that the food has Creole, French, Filipino, and other foreign influences. Even with this warning, we are still taken by surprise when our bread is served with cuite, a thick pungent Moroccan salsa. As it turns out, cuite is only the first in a series of spicy, international taste excursions. Indeed, Melange is committed to combining intense, unusual spices and sauces with fresh seafood.

Given the delicacy of fresh fish, an emphasis on strong flavors may seem self-defeating, but given the spirit of melange-making, it’s right on target. At least it is when they can pull it off.

A mountain of perfectly steamed mussels in a fragrant, garlicky broth is certainly one successful melange. We were impressed too, that in a town invaded by giant, rubbery, tasteless New Zealand mussels, Melange chooses to serve the medium-sized delicious black-shelled ones.

We also enjoyed the tender and peppery fried calamari, but are less impressed by the pastelles, a smidgen of tasteless fish tucked into greasy fried dough. Both are enhanced by a hot, chutney-like Moroccan sauce called harissa, a dark red concoction so condensed that one ounce of the stuff could have colored and flavored our entire tablecloth. Sauces failed, however, to remedy the fact that neither the raw oysters (served with a shallot vinegar) nor the shrimp (in the shrimp remoulade) had seen the sea as recently as we might have liked.

The gumbo was almost a success--oddly, not quite spicy enough. The shrimp bisque also need more tang; one companion dubbed it gravy soup.

I liked the Shrimp Americaine and the romantically presented Shrimp Under Glass. The snapper special with cucumber and ginger sauce was terrific too, but unless you’re an athlete-in-training, you’ll probably take half home with you. However, my favorite dish was not seafood, but the bright yellow Chicken Melange that was served on sweet onions and topped with confit, a heavenly, candied, roasted lemon peel.

In some cases, the chef’s urge to add spices and otherwise tamper with perfectly good ingredients overwhelms a dish. The paella, which could feed family of four, is an uninspired, confusing melange of overly saffroned rice, baby squid, chicken, mussels, clams and hot pepperoni. In the fettuccine primavera, good fresh vegetables and the pasta itself are destroyed by a gluey gruyere sauce.

For lunch, Melange offers fried seafood sandwiches and a scaled down version of the dinner menu. My advice is to skip salads and appetizers, demur on the entrees, and vent one’s noonday hunger on the fried oyster sandwich. Fresh oysters are fried into a crunchy, peppery batter, then piled on a crusty baguette with tomatoes and onions, mayonnaise and hot mustard. For this sizable, luscious creation alone, Melange deserves to prosper.

Desserts are based on chef Philip Callahan’s recipes and baked at Edie’s Bakery in Canoga Park. There are mousses in chocolate boxes, cheesecakes and nut tortes, all rich and sweet and appropriate only for people who have just spent a month chained to a Nautilus machine. Twice, we opted for the house fruit and cheese platter. The first time it was a delightful combination of fresh fruit and good cheeses. The second time, there was still a good variety of cheese, but the fruit had been dipped in a waxy chocolate film. Enough is enough! Feeling barraged by melanges, we check the impulse to race back to the kitchen and implore the chef to STOP! before he concocts, mixes, stirs up . . . melanges again.

Melange Seafood, 17547 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 501-0501. Lunch and dinner seven days. Beer and wine. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only $35-$50.