Avant-Garde Outpost Maintains Novel Style With Inventive Menu

If there are two chefs in town who would find it easier to grab a white-hot skillet barehanded than to write a menu that includes an unadorned, grilled chicken breast, they would be Chris Walsh and Gunther Emathinger.

Given the menus they do write, however, this shared limitation translates into a virtue. Walsh, long a fixture in the kitchen at Hillcrest’s trendy California Cuisine, probably was one of the few local chefs able to fill the void when Emathinger surrendered his saute pans at the equally trendy 515 Fifth in the Gaslamp Quarter to open his own new place, Falco, a few blocks up the avenue.

The proprietor of 515, Laurie Woodside, managed a nice continuation in style when she replaced Emathinger with Walsh. Walsh has written a pleasant summer menu that, as will be the case with future seasonal lists, is supplemented by a daily menu of some length. Even the soups show his penchant for combining seemingly mismatched ingredients and making the result decorative.

One recent example finished a cream of spinach with a swirl of pasilla chile butter. Another, rather grandiloquently called “chilled French morning and evening melon soup,” paired sweet honeydew and cantaloupe soups in the same bowl, so that the jade color of one and the dusky peach of the other played upon each other like two stones in a pendant.

Unlike those chefs who save their best for the daily specials card, Walsh includes much that is imaginative on the standing menu. One of the more startling is the steak au poivre blanc , an appetizer that takes the basic idea of French pepper steak and turns it on its head. The dish is parsimoniously portioned but quite intriguing and consists of a bit of filet that has been coated in cracked pepper, very briefly sauteed, chilled and garnished with a “bread salsa” made of crumbs flavored with assorted herbs, a great many capers and just enough jalapeno to make the mix sprightly. This one-of-a-kind creation is excellent, but take note that the meat is nearly raw and it may take a degree of determination to take the first bite. The others follow easily.

Among other standing appetizers, the lobster tamale is either a masterwork of subtlety or exceedingly bland, depending upon one’s reaction to the thick layer of masa dough that encases the tiny, delicately seasoned morsels of lobster. The dough and seafood actually play nicely under the covering of tequila-flavored butter sauce, studded with sliced apricots that supply a sweet flavor that here seems not at all out of context. As a nice complement to its basic ingredient, the tamale is presented in a partly opened husk, which makes it look like a half-shucked ear of corn.

Walsh also makes something unusual of potstickers, the Chinese fried dumplings that at some restaurants have usurped the place once held so securely by egg rolls. The bundles of soft but fairly crunchy dough are stuffed with a sweet-savory blend of minced chicken and Bing cherries, and served with a potent dipping sauce of soy and vinegar seasoned with a good deal--but not too much--of chile oil.

The summer menu also (and rather inescapably, in this era) includes several pastas and pizzas, all of the designer variety. A dish of penne pasta, given a Mexican flavor by its garnish of manchego cheese, cubed avocado, roasted peppers, oregano and olive oil, was the only weak item sampled over the course of two recent visits. As strong as this combination of flavors might sound, in point of fact it was remarkably bland.

But the flavors of ginger, garlic, lemon and Dijon mustard did join forces to add a spirited note to a serving of peanut-crusted pork tenderloin, the meat cut into several log shapes that, given their nutty armor, looked for all the world like a popular candy bar. Pork can be dull, but this manner of preparation gave the meat a thoroughly novel and somewhat Oriental flavor. An understated sauce of caramelized shallots and balsamic vinegar had an equally pleasing effect on segments of charbroiled duck, a stronger meat that can take a relatively subtle sauce and turn it to advantage.

The specials lists almost make the standing menu seem conservative. One recently offered appetizer, the “savory seafood Napoleon,” not only co-opted a famous dessert by alternating layers of flaky pastry with a rich seafood filling, but finished the item with a jazzy coulis (a strained sauce) of rhubarb and cilantro. To effect the union of rhubarb and cilantro requires an open mind, to say the least, but 515 places few bars on inventiveness.

A salad of roasted peppers, on the other hand, was certainly tasty, but more notable for its beauty. Walsh twisted strips of yellow, red and green peppers into roses, gave each blossom a chive stem, and planted them all in an “earth” of eggplant caviar (chopped, highly seasoned eggplant); a generous splash of olive oil masked the plate and gave a certain smoothness to each item.

Among entrees, a serving of flash-grilled tombo tuna required a taste for exceedingly rare fish, but once past that hurdle the tuna was brought along handsomely by its strong butter sauce, flavored with jalapeno, ginger and triple sec liqueur. Sweetbreads, dusted in flour and crisped in hot butter, were fork tender and succulent in their garnish of fresh pear chutney (very lightly spiced) and hazelnut liqueur glaze.

Walsh’s urge to decorate continues to the end. A fine, deeply bitter chocolate truffle torte arrived on a plate painted in a “stained glass” pattern of caramel and raspberry sauces. A richly gooey caramel-walnut torte included a few raisins and a layer of apricot preserves in the center as sweet surprises, and was placed on a plate patterned with Expressionist squiggles of chocolate sauce and fruit purees. These decorations, squeezed from plastic bottles, require little extra effort but add a good bit of class to the serving.

The restaurant will observe its second anniversary this Halloween, which seems an appropriate date for this artsy, avant-garde outpost in the Gaslamp. The high-backed booths, painted a glossy black and softened by black cushions splattered with bright paints, provide a look both contemporary and Bohemian. The walls display both a changing show of works by local artists and down-home posters from Wine Country vintners. 515 Fifth also is among the increasing number of Gaslamp eateries that offer service at sidewalk tables.

DAVID NELSON ON RESTAURANTS

* 515 FIFTH

515 5th Ave.

232-3352

Lunch served Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, with a glass of wine each, tax and tip, $40 to $80.