RESTAURANT REVIEW : Chefs Sail Confidently at Lincoln Bay

I’m personally fond of the small, unpretentious bistros opened up by experienced chefs who have finally saved enough money to open a modest place of their own.

Unfortunately, many of these places flounder. Sometimes the chefs, for all their expertise in the kitchen, have no idea how the dining room should be run and the good cooking is obviated by lousy service. Sometimes, the food and service are good, but the room itself is oppressive. Other times, chefs go a little wild when suddenly left to their own devices--I’ve had recent brushes with blueberry fettuccine and with lamb cooked in maple syrup. But sometimes the elements fall into place. The Lincoln Bay Cafe in Santa Monica is one of the good ones.

Eddy Herbert, former executive chef of the Ritz (now Delmonico’s), has opened a cheerful cafe in what was once an old pizza parlor on Lincoln Boulevard.

The exterior is as understated as a private home; inside, there are pale yellow walls, propeller fans and tasteful paintings of food on the wall. The service is friendly and enthusiastic. We found it easy to relax.

The menu is full of surprises, and one of the nicest is the reasonable price range. The food is California cuisine by way of New Orleans and Italy. There are the standard dishes without which a Los Angeles restaurant can’t seem to survive: fried calamari , Caesar salad, pasta, chicken. There are creative dishes, things like fusilli with salmon in a split pea and basil puree. And then there are classic Cajun dishes.

Eddy Herbert isn’t alone in the kitchen. He brought in Albert Griffin, who helped Herbert open the Ritz. With Griffin came Big Al’s gumbo with chicken, sausage and shrimp. It was the first thing I tasted at the Lincoln Bay Cafe. At first I was shocked by the depth and earthiness of its taste. And then it grew on me.

Big Al’s gumbo tastes like soil, like smoke, like fish and like fowl. It’s a bit viscous from the okra, rich from the meats and so spicy. I hoarded the scoop of white rice as welcome bits of mitigating blandness. I ate every bite of gumbo in the bowl and then looked around for more.

But there are other wonderful things to eat here. Good, sweet shrimp comes in a benign-looking pale-green sauce that was actually a fiery combination of cilantro and jalapenos.

A salad of endive and peppery watercress with blue cheese and walnuts is well dressed and altogether splendid. Soft-shell crabs are nicely sauteed and served with a rich roasted garlic sauce.

I was surprised all over again by the port-marinated skirt steak. It tasted, well, like port. And then again, like beef. At first I couldn’t decide which flavor was more dominant, and then I realized that the two tastes were wonderfully compatible. The more I ate, the more I wanted. But when dessert time came I realized I couldn’t eat another bite.

On another visit, the maitre d’, who owns the restaurant with Herbert, suggested we all sit back and let the chef choose our dinner. This is how a lot of people seem to eat here so we accepted the offer. We were sent a raft of good surprises. I’ve never had an artichoke stuffed with chopped peppers, and I’m not sure the idea works as a great dish, but the peppers were well dressed and it was fun to scoop them up on artichoke leaves.

We absolutely fell for the hot breaded-and-fried wedges of mozzarella served in a pungent, creamy lemon sauce.

The trout that we got was crisp, its meat sweet and delicate, in sync with its stuffing of pureed mushrooms. Jambalaya with shrimp, sausage and chicken was robust and delicious with the sweetest bay shrimp.

If the jambalaya is a little less mysterious and earthy than the gumbo, it may also have more widespread appeal since the general population tends to have what I think is an ill-conceived hostility toward okra.

We’d eaten so much that we thought dessert was out of the question.

But then two pecan “diamonds” with a dollop of rich whipped cream were set before us. We took a taste to be polite and then found ourselves eating on, in spite of ourselves. Thus, chefs Eddy and Albert provided one more proof to the age-old theory: Nothing builds up an appetite like good food.

Lincoln Bay Cafe, 1928 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica, (213) 396-4039. Open seven days for lunch and dinner. Beer and wine license pending. MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, food only, $30-$55.