RESTAURANT REVIEW : Good Food at a Nightclub? Hey, It Can Happen; Dip Into Seafood at Montego

Who would go to a Jamaican-themed night club that looks like a set from “Miami Vice” and expect to get an Italian meal? Not me. How would I know that neon-flashed Montego would have an Italian chef and a fairly good one at that? Plain blind luck.

You don’t have to be interested in reggae music (Friday nights) or the 20s single scene (Friday and Saturday nights) to have a good evening here, but it helps. Although part of the dining room is considerately separated from the bar/lounge/dance floor/bandstand areas by thick plate glass, the music is still intrusive. And, yes, the place is enormous and utterly open, including the kitchen. Given the panoramic views from your booth, it’s no surprise that Montego is a voyeur’s delight.

What is surprising, considering that Montego isn’t principally a restaurant, is that what the kitchen does best, it does very well. With discretion, you can put together quite a good meal.

Montego seems to have an especially good source for shellfish-- which account for more than half of the appetizers. A dish of fried oysters, placed back in their shells on a bed of diced mango salsa, was unexpectedly refreshing. Another worthy starter was steamed mussels and naturally sweet clams in a pulpy herbed tomato broth. After the tasty mollusks had been quickly consumed, the remaining broth was greedily absorbed into freshly baked rolls.

Other appetizers, though no less freshly made, lacked sufficient flavor: They included a generous seafood salad of calamari, clams, mussels and shrimp, fried tender calamari and boiled shrimp on cold diced eggplant.

The high quality of foodstuffs and sometimes of preparation at Montego continues into the entrees.

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Pizzaiola is one of the most commonly bastardized Neapolitan ways of preparing meat. At Montego they serve three thick, tender slices of top-quality beef tenderloin with such flavorsome chunks of tomato, olive and garlic seasoned with oregano that you’d think you were at a peasant picnic in the country outside of Naples. And the lamb chops: three (is this a magic number?) and not the kind with tasteless meat looking like mini-prime rib, but the kind with well-textured meat and wonderful tasting fat, napped with an unobtrusive mustard sauce.

Fish entrees have been no less interesting. Grilled sea bass served with an unexpected cold tomato caper sauce was a welcome surprise, and mahi-mahi with a red bell pepper puree was also successful. The simply prepared vegetables (carrots, zucchini, yellow squash) that accompany the fish and meat dishes have been uniformly appealing, and new potatoes, boiled, then roasted briefly with rosemary, were outstanding.

An insipid pizza Margherita gave this category of the menu little hope. Also disappointing were the desserts, which included a cheesecake with a raspberry jelly topping.

The wine list was “in transition,” which meant there wasn’t one. There were almost no wines--just two or three Cabernets and Chardonnays and a Chianti. An excellent Shafer merlot enjoyed one evening was no longer available five days later. Clearly beer and liquor take precedence over wine here.

It says a lot for how far we’ve come in recent years that a place like Montego serves food as good as it does. I’d like to believe that our standards of expectation are now so high that we no longer assume we’ll be served muddy-flavored preparations made from mediocre ingredients--even in a glitzy, noisy nightclub decorated with fake palm trees.

Recommended dishes: Oysters Montego with Mango Salsa $8.50, Beef Tenderloin Pizzaiola, $16; Lamb Chops, $16.75.

Montego, 15910 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 986-7034. Open for lunch Mondays through Fridays, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; open for dinner Mondays through Fridays, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturdays, 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Full bar. Dancing. Live entertainment some nights. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two (food only) $50-$60.