Resturants : ART AND SUSTENANCE : Cafe Zoolu Manages a Perfect Marriage of Painters

In Laguna Beach, it’s long been hard to tell the restaurants from the art galleries. With the opening of Cafe Zoolu, it just got harder. Cafe Zoolu doesn’t just look like an art gallery, it really is a gallery, showcasing the work of Geri Kissler, the artist wife of chef/owner Lonnie Painter.

Kissler chose the restaurant’s catchy name for sentimental reasons; she once lived in Africa--and her multimedia works line the dining room walls. She’s a clever artist, as evidenced by her three-dimensional parody of the famous self-portrait by Van Gogh, a bizarre acrylic of Georgia O’Keefe and some unforgiving impressions of Woody Allen and David Bowie.

It’s Kissler’s artwork that draws you into this restaurant and sustains you while you are eating, but it’s the food that will bring you back. Painter, an artist of a different kind, was longtime chef at Trees in Corona del Mar and his style is inventive, often compelling and sometimes just plain weird.

Painter’s menu has an unusual structure. The desserts are at the top, though they are not a particular strength. Perhaps the chef wanted to get your attention with the first dessert listed, bongo Congo chocolate cake. It’s a great name, I admit, but an average cake, just Bundt cake with creme fraiche and sliced strawberries.

The chef offers two appetizers: “steamers” and angel hair pasta. Steamers is a bowl of mussels and clams with bok choy and some braised fennel, and the dish is basically a good idea. When I tried it the shellfish were cooked perfectly, but the broth was impossibly salty. The angel hair, on the other hand, perfumed with basil, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan, was perfect all the way around.

In the soup and salad section, there is a daily soup which is apt to be as creative as some of Kissler’s wall hangings. One night I had a curried vegetable soup with a lump of mashed potatoes in the middle; it tasted like street food in the south of India. The Chinese chicken salad is reminiscent of Trees, a plateful of iceberg lettuce, sesame oil dressing, wispy rice noodles and some finely chopped seasoned chicken. It’s really fresh, and as simple and satisfying a version of the dish as I can recall.

The other two are less interesting. One is a house salad with cucumbers, tomatoes and a dressy balsamic vinaigrette. The other is an eccentric Caesar, with bits of andouille sausage drowning out the scent of any garlic or anchovies.

Painter’s eclectic style really comes out in his main courses, which range from self-styled Thai to countrified American. The meat loaf is somewhat of a disappointment--dense and aromatically flavored, it will make you long for a simpler interpretation. But the potatoes and gravy that come with it are just sensational.

Thai stir-fried chicken is nothing of the sort. It’s a heap of chicken with stir-fried vegetables such as carrot, celery and onion, but no discernible Thai flavorings: no lemon grass, mint leaf or galanga root. I couldn’t even detect garlic.

But in between the exotic and the mundane, Painter’s talent shines. His garlic-marinated shrimp are delicious, grilled simply and served with a chewy, buttery rice pilaf containing sun dried tomatoes. Duck with plum sauce, a daily special, was a remarkably good mixture of chopped cooked duck meat and piquant, complex sauce. Both these dishes, incidentally, came with fresh, crisp, French cut green beans with abundant slices of toasted almond.

There’s a small section devoted to vegetarian entrees, which are actually some of the strongest on the menu. The black bean chili is an unctuous, richly spiced mixture served with brown rice, yam patties and honey. Better still is the Zoolu burrito, a whole-wheat tortilla filled with a lightly curried potato mixture enriched by zucchini, sweet pepper, onion and a cucumber salsa. It too tastes vaguely south Indian and shows lots of imagination.

Now it’s dessert time; back to the top of the menu where creme caramel, summer fruits and berry crumb cake beckon, along with the infamous bongo cake. The best of these is the berry cake, a rich, muffiny slice with fresh blueberries and creme fraiche once more drizzled on top. The others are pleasantly ordinary.

No alcohol is served as yet, so accompany your meal with passion fruit ice tea, a frothy cappuccino or various mineral waters.

Cafe Zoolu is moderately priced. Soups, salads and appetizers are $3 to $5.50. Entrees are $8 to $14 and desserts $3.50 to $4.

CAFE ZOOLU

860 Gleneyre Street, Laguna Beach.

(714) 494-6825.

Open Sunday through Thursday from 5:30 to 10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays till midnight.

MasterCard, Visa and American Express.