At Opus, Meat Is Only by Request

Opus, set in Santa Monica’s huge new Water Garden office complex, is a grown-up restaurant, its curvy surfaces covered in burnished wood paneling, its intimate booths perfect for adult conversation. Even in the restaurant’s first week, the service was unobtrusive and informed--nobody said, “OK, who gets the shrimp?”

Opus’ chef-proprietor, Eberhard Mueller, comes from New York’s famous Le Bernardin, and he has created a totally modern fish restaurant. If Mueller had his way, Opus would serve only fish and seafood. Normally a bottom-of-the-page notation indicating a chef’s willingness to accommodate, say, a salt-free diet, here the phrase “Available Upon Request” heads the category, adapted from Le Bernardin’s menu, where you’ll find . . . steak, chicken and the potato of the day. It is the haute cuisine equivalent of the landlubber’s special.

What Mueller really wants to serve you is spiced skate wing and fennel salad, or lingcod in a sauce of pureed flageolets. Some of the best dishes so far include a fancy potato salad with Dungeness crab meat and slivers of black truffle; a hunk of striped bass, skin crisp, served in a puddle of mussel-parsley sauce; and thinly sliced scallops poached in celery broth (similar to Le Bernardin’s sliced black bass in a coriander infusion). One thing you can’t help hoping, though, is that Mueller won’t be afraid to put Le Bernardin’s famous sea urchin dishes on his menu.

Opus, 2425 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 829-2112. Entrees $18 to $33.