RESTAURANT REVIEW : Cuisine at the Canopy Is ‘60s-Plus

Proust could have written a whole novella about my flashback at Canopy of the Sky.

It happened during the cashew nut loaf. Five of us were talking passionately about the Persian Gulf, the economy and the merits of beta carotene when suddenly all the heat, smoke and chaos of the ‘60s flashed before my eyes and I was back in a YWCA cafeteria at the University of Wisconsin in 1968. That was the last time I’d eaten a plate of cashews smeared with brown gravy.

Ah, rash and misspent youth. I think I actually liked them back then.

This tiny cafe, directly across Reseda Boulevard from a Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Food Supermarket in the former site of a Mandarin Deli, serves up a plethora of dishes we remember with fondness from the ‘60s. Surely you remember asparagus quiche, whole-grain pastas, brown rice with just about everything.

But it also features things we never dreamed of in those days, such as pesto lasagna, Southwestern-style corn souffle, even tapenade with crudites . Credit thoroughly modern chef Evi Colombo for the time-scape menu. Colombo was longtime chef at Topanga’s Inn of the Seventh Ray, a restaurant where some would argue the ‘60s are still going strong.

Colombo’s food spans more than time. Exotic destinations--Japan, Greece, Santa Cruz County--are represented in many of the recipes, all of which emphasize fresh natural ingredients. And in a place that seems no bigger than a whole-grain breadbox, the variety seems almost . . . like, amazing.

The tables are tiny, all right, and the chairs do get hard after an hour or so, but basically you won’t mind. It’s a charming room and the waiters try hard. Only the extreme sluggishness of the kitchen might tarnish an otherwise delightful evening.

The walls are painted powder blue and spangled with little gold stars, so you feel you are being protected by a magical canopy. (That’s the idea, at least.) Soothing baroque partitas are piped in over remote speakers, music of Vivaldi, Telemann and Bach. That should relax you. If it doesn’t, there’s always meditation.

You will want to start with those raw vegetables and tapenade, a thick version of the Provencal olive dip that is tempered by the piquancy of capers and the sweetness of basil. An appetizer called “warm seafood medley” in a sesame ginger herb dressing is good too, right from the Japanese kitchen. It’s a plateful of marinated baby scallops and calamari, and the dressing with a rice-wine base seems almost radical for the surroundings.

Pizza, another specialty here, is made from a special organic whole-grain crust that cooks up nice and crispy. You get tomato, fresh basil and mozzarella by default, but for an extra charge you can choose from a long list of ingredients that include turkey sausage, chicken pepperoni, assorted cheeses and fresh vegetables. We had ours with smoked mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh spinach, and it was great.

The pastas, made on the premises from organic flour, are generally served in good sauces made from extra virgin olive oil or fresh cream. One exception is the stir-fried soba with vegetables and tofu, a Japanese dish that is light and savory. More typical is the green pasta special, a defiantly rich dish of whole-grain spinach fettuccine, zucchini, spinach, mushrooms and walnuts in fresh herb cream sauce. In the ‘60s, I might have been able to finish it.

Most of the entrees are creative and satisfying. OK, so I didn’t actually love that cashew nut loaf, nostalgia aside. I found it heavy and soggy, like whole-grain toast soaked in eggnog.

But I did like the turkey loaf, dense and mildly spiced, served with terrific mashed potatoes and the same good brown sauce that comes with the cashew loaf. And pesto lasagna is wonderful: a thick, chunky square layered with ricotta, mushrooms and spinach. You can taste the basil in every bite.

Chef Colombo is a bit heavy-handed, though, when it comes to desserts. Among the better ones are a thick, creamy cheesecake flavored with amaretto in a dense graham flour crust and something she calls mango delight, a large cocktail glass filled with yogurt and pureed fresh mango.

You’d better like carob if you order the hazelnut cake. It has an overwhelming carob frosting, which tastes vaguely like something I ate once back in the ‘60s. I’m not sure what, though. I must have blocked that one out. Sorry, Monsieur Proust.

Suggested dishes: crudites with tapenade, $3.95; pizza, $5.95 and $8.95; Japanese noodles with vegetables and tofu, $9.95; pesto lasagna, $13.95.

Canopy of the Sky, 9351 Reseda Blvd., Northridge; (818) 885-1875. Breakfast 7 a.m.-noon daily; lunch noon-5 p.m. daily; dinner 5-10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday, 5 p.m.-midnight Friday-Saturday. Beer and wine. Parking lot. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $25-$40.