All Aboard for Innovative Fare at Depot

In every restaurant that Robert Bell and Michael Franks open, you get the feeling the chefs are having fun. Consider some of the food that comes out of the kitchen at the pair’s newest South Bay restaurant, Depot: “Thai-dyed” chicken; grilled scallops with rock shrimp sausages; cassoulet of grilled duck. Even plain old grilled rib eye comes with a scallion Yorkshire pudding. Caesar salad is tossed, not with croutons, but with sun-dried tomato palmiers . Nothing is ordinary here.

When Franks and Bell opened their first place, Chez Melange, in 1982, eclectic and world cuisine had yet to to become restaurant buzzwords. The food they were serving was instinctive, a blending of whatever new ingredients and ethnic cooking styles they were excited about at the time. This mix-and-match cuisine at first was sometimes brilliant and sometimes, well, just weird.

But over the years, Bell and Franks have pretty much figured out what works and what doesn’t. Chez Melange is still one of the most popular restaurants in the South Bay, and with their other restaurants, Fino and Misto Caffe, Franks and Bell have established a small empire.

With Depot, they’ve transformed a Southern Pacific railroad station, built in 1912, and opened Depot. The place has a sophisticated bar-and-grill look with dark wood, elegant columns and Moderne-style sconces. In the bar, you can snack on raw oysters, clams, tuna or salmon. You can also have your seafood seared or smoked--maybe bits of Thai-seasoned salmon skin or a plateful of what Depot calls “Chacha’s Atomic Shrimp.”

Things are slightly more sedate in the dining rooms. You may order pork tenderloin glazed with candied plum and port sauce--an odd-sounding dish that you’d assume would turn out sweet and icky--and get a perfectly lovely, delicious plate of food that is anything but ordinary.

* Depot, 1250 Cabrillo Ave., Torrance, (213) 787-7501. Entrees $10.95-$19.95.