Melting Pot of Styles Jumbles Hyatt Menu

Soaring atriums and top-floor eateries became trademarks of Hyatt’s Regency hotels when the first of these “super hotels” opened in Atlanta in the early 1970s.

The Barcino dining room at the new Hyatt Regency hotel in the Golden Triangle’s Aventine complex differs both as to location and the spin it puts on such dishes as braised duck pasta and swordfish in saffroned potato broth.

Barcino actually is down a flight of stairs from the main lobby. It is a high-ceilinged, many-pillared space that seems a cross between a 19th Century resort’s grand dining room and the waiting rooms of an Eastern railroad station. The setting is striking, both for its spaciousness and for its extensive use of marble, elements that suit the mix of Imperial Rome and Post Modern styles that gives the Aventine project its locally unique character.

If the restaurant does not spin, it does toil to present attractively designed and generally well-cooked plates The cooking, in fact, seems more orderly than the menu, which is written as a rather incoherent blend of styles that could be described as “standard hotel fare goes Western Mediterranean.”

The basic thrust follows the theme of the hotel and is Italian. (In the days when B.C. and A.D. were enumerated in double digits, the Aventine was considered the toniest of Rome’s seven hills.) But there also are menu influences from Provence and from the Catalan region of Spain.

These influences show up both in genuinely ethnic dishes and in stylized retreads of standard fare, such as the fried goat cheese and the chicken filet appetizers. Although attractively done, these seem like nothing so much as gussied-up versions of “happy hour” snacks served in bars across the country.

Hotel dining room menus usually offer smoked salmon and snails, as does Barcino. In the effort to be different, however, the snails are treated to tomatoes, artichoke hearts and herbs rather than the typical bath of garlic butter. Similarly, the usual prosciutto-melon combo here includes a garnish of Port wine and dried fruits. The fried goat cheese, although tasty, will be familiar to anyone who ever has met a breaded mozzarella finger with tomato sauce.

The problem with Barcino is more with the menu than the cooking. This may arise because there is an intention to both accommodate gastronomically conservative hotel guests while attracting daring locals, which makes Barcino more or less two restaurants in one. For whatever reason, the menu presents one of those occasional instances in which building a logical meal from course to course seems impossible. Because of the mix of cooking styles, the starters, with the exception of the salads, do not lead very comfortably to either the pastas or the entrees.

The one notable exception is an amusing chain of dishes linked by the saffron-tinged fish and vegetable stock that is the base ingredient in each. The first, suquet , is described by the menu as “a Catalan fish and potato soup.” The second, called by the Italian-Spanish name of “pasta paella,” consists of linguine with mixed seafood and saffron. The third, an entree, is given a French tone by a description that denotes “a pot-au-feu of vegetables and saffron broth” with a grilled swordfish steak plopped in the middle of the bowl, but is obviously just an elaboration on the basic and very Spanish suquet . The kitchen gets a lot of mileage out of that one basic broth.

Pasta, as it must these days, appears as an appetizer, under its own heading and sometimes as a daily special. The appetizer, chunks of savory braised duck with fresh and sun dried tomatoes, is tumbled with a really lovely whole wheat pasta and is quite delicious. Entree-sized portions include baked salmon sided by linguine in clam sauce; penne with green beans, olives, arugula, tomato and prosciutto, and ditali macaroni tubes dressed with tomato, basil, eggplant and smoked mozzarella.

One evening’s special pasta, though likable, involved such a complicated mix of styles, combined according to nouvelle cuisine sensibilities, that it seemed designed by a computer running on a “gastronomic novelty” software program. This dish consisted of large, triangular envelopes of egg dough--a little too thick and stiff--that had been stuffed with French garlic-herb cream cheese and a touch of shredded prosciutto. The pasta packages rested on a pool of creamed pesto, and were topped by a tomato-basil vinaigrette. The contemplation of this dish was somewhat exhausting, although the eating was easy enough.

The entree list takes a basically French tack and opens with lamb chops--standard fare--garnished with a non-standard side of stewed white beans. There is also a warm duck salad; a basic sirloin steak; a dressier dish of beef filets garnished with Roquefort cheese custard and a dark beer sauce; roast chicken, and a roasted red snapper filet topped with bacon, basil and tomato. A veal chop, described as served with “large” mushrooms (a billing that allows the kitchen considerable leeway in the mushroom department) was simple but nicely cooked and flavorful, the mushrooms on this occasion the savory oyster mushrooms. A fried cake of chive-flavored potatoes made an excellent second garnish.

The desserts also are French, and the handsome list includes a fine, creamy white chocolate mousse layered with puff pastry discs and berries; a cinnamon flan studded with rum-soaked raisins; a chocolate-walnut terrine with mint sauce, and a clever variation on creme brulee that added coffee flavoring and a topping of candied orange peel to the basic cream custard recipe. This last, however, was spoiled by the fact that it had been glazed in a smoky broiler and tasted of charred beef.

BARCINO

Hyatt Regency hotel, 3777 La Jolla Village Drive

552-1234

Lunch and dinner daily.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, $45 to $90.