Innovative and Cosmopolitan Cuisine in Zona Rio

The menus at this city’s fashionable restaurants still tend to repeat from place to place as relentlessly as the rhyming stanzas on middle-brow birthday cards.

This phenomenon is by no means restricted to Tijuana--consider the dreary similarities of Southern California beach restaurant menus--nor is it such a bad thing. The better Tijuana places always make much of the local lobsters, Sea of Cortez shrimp and traditional Mexican meat preparations.

But the city’s growing economic importance dictates change, and Tijuana certainly does seem to be acquiring more cosmopolitan tastes. Although there is some resurgence in the old downtown, most of the important new houses continue to choose locations in the chic Zona Rio.

The Alcazar del Rio, in operation for two or three years, has developed into what surely must be one of the most innovative restaurants in all Baja California.

Outwardly similar to its top-drawer competitors, Alcazar del Rio has a mood that is formal and dressy and with a large staff, alert and deferential. It offers a menu that goes in 2 1/2 distinct directions, a fact that places it in a class of its own. If its menu is up to date, so are the surroundings, which tend to modern austerity softened with pink cloths and silk flowers on the tables. A pianist in the balcony bar plays nimbly through the evening.

Almost alone among Tijuana restaurants, Alcazar takes a serious look at Spanish cuisine, which may inspire much of Mexican cooking but, in terms of actual recipes, generally remains quite distinct. (The wonderful tapas bar in Plaza Fiesta, Tablao Espanol, is unquestionably Spanish, but is also an entirely different sort of eatery). Alcazar also seems alone in its presentation of nouvelle or contemporary cooking, including many forward-looking creations that appear to be entirely its own. And finally, the menu accommodates traditionalists with such typical Tijuana favorites as lobster Thermidor (in this case, with the unusual and extravagant addition of black truffle, an ingredient not mentioned by the classic French recipe), beef brochette and eight quail preparations.

These three distinct styles turn up in every section of the menu as well as on the daily specials list, which also indulges in cross-border cookery by including fajitas , which originated in Texas, and pasta with a sauce of cream and four cheeses; both of these dishes enjoy considerable popularity in San Diego.

The appetizer page may be the least interesting of the menu, except for the angulas a la Bilbaina , a classic Spanish dish of baby eels in garlic and oil that Alcazar teams with fresh asparagus. People who have sampled this dish in Spain have likened it to a briny-tasting spaghetti. The slender baby eels, when piled together, do look like a mound of thin pasta. But one still must get around the fact of its basic eel-ness before ordering it, and it went untried.

The menu comes much more into its own with a pair of soups, one Spanish and one an updated Mexican classic, that show off the kitchen’s use of the best materials. The first combines Spanish forest mushrooms (an item repeated through the menu) with fresh mushrooms and spinach leaves in a full-bodied chicken broth, and the result is extraordinarily savory. The similar sopa de cuitlacoche is distinctly Mexican; it employs the rich-tasting fungus that grows on fortunate ears of corn and has a truffle-like quality. This soup typically is creamed, but Alcazar lightens the recipe by serving it in a clear broth, to which cubes of manchego cheese add a zesty and distinctive seasoning.

The salad list begins with a beguiling plate of lettuce, asparagus and mushrooms dressed with el Alino , a complicated Spanish salad dressing that goes well beyond the basic oil-and-vinegar combination with its mix of herbs and teasing hint of crushed almonds. Paper-thin slices of cured ham, dried beef and cheese make this a luxurious and substantial starter. Alcazar also tosses an excellent Caesar at table; this salad never seems so well made as in Tijuana. The benefit of table-side preparation, which is sorely misunderstood by those reverse-snobs who see it as simply so much flash and trumpery, is that it guarantees a salad properly coated with the right amounts of egg, anchovy, oil, lemon, grated cheese and Worcestershire sauce. Caesar is a method, not a dressing, and it cannot be poured out of a bottle or ladled out of a tub. It always excludes herbs and mustard, and don’t let anyone try to tell you differently.

Alcazar shows its nouvelle inclinations with such entrees as camarones Alcazar del Rio (many dishes bear the restaurant’s signature), or shrimp flamed in Cognac, glazed with jalapeno-fired sauce bearnaise and arranged on a bed of asparagus.

Also in the modern mood are steamed halibut with mushrooms and oyster sauce; a New York sirloin with chipotle butter (it is the chili butter, not the steak, that is novel); dill-sauced lobster and scallops on a bed of seaweed, and the fish of the day, topped with smoked salmon and caviar and moistened with a manchego and Roquefort cheese sauce. In most cases, traditional Mexican flavors accent dishes prepared according to current French techniques, and it is this sort of mingling that is the soul of contemporary cooking. Even though contemporary cuisine can create atrocities, it is heartening to see this style emerge in Tijuana.

Spanish cuisine is represented by such dishes as a filet of beef garnished with marrow and a tarragon-scented wine sauce; another filet topped with cured ham, anchovies, chestnuts and forest mushrooms; excellent baby lamb chops finished with a smooth, subtle hazelnut sauce and a fine rack of lamb crusted with garlic, mustard and bread crumbs. Alcazar in fact quite shines with its lamb, which it sends out pink, tender and flowing with juices.

One of the most exciting dishes sampled was the camarones al chipotle y chocolate , or shrimp braised in a mole sauce heightened with almonds, pine nuts and a little more than the usual dose of unsweetened chocolate. The chocolate provided a flat, bitter note against which the other flavors, notably that of cinnamon, played, and the chipotle chilies provided a sweat-inducing heat that was, on the whole, quite agreeable.

Also excellent was the pato rostizado en su jugo , or spiced duck roasted to a tender turn and served with a boat of its own juices sparked with dried anise buds. The stylish presentation included a bit of fresh mango sauce as an updated Mexican accent.

Although it seemed odd to find fajitas on the menu, Alcazar served them handsomely, using strips of marinated filet and garnishing them elaborately with wedges of avocado, good beans, searing pickled onions and a subtly menacing salsa that crept up slowly but dangerously on the tongue.

The best desserts are those done at table, and by all means skip the showy cakes, which are frosted by the Michelangelo of pastry cooks but taste like sawdust. An order of crepes suzettes, a classic Tijuana favorite, took 15 minutes to prepare, a well-spent quarter-hour that resulted in orange-glazed pancakes that smelled deliciously of good butter and liqueur.

Alcazar is a bit expensive by Tijuana standards, but a dinner will cost considerably less than would a comparable meal in San Diego. A three-course dinner for two, including a decent bottle from a Baja vineyard, tax and tip, should cost no more than $70. The restaurant, on the busy Paseo de los Heroes, is easily found.

ALCAZAR DEL RIO

56-4 Paseo de los Heroes, Tijuana

Telephone: Tijuana 84-26-72

Lunch and dinner daily.

Major credit cards accepted.