SOME FUN ON THE BAYOU : More California Than Louisiana, Lincoln Bay Cafe Takes Up Where the Ritz Left Off

Like a movie that has set its cap for an Oscar, the Ritz Cafe opened with a full-scale premiere, featuring celebrities, searchlights and major hubbub. That was eight years ago, when Louisiana food was brand new to California and threatened to be the next big thing. Angelenos flocked to the oyster bar and yearned for a chance to sit in the semiprivate booths. They told themselves they were enjoying that Creole-Cajun stuff they’d been hearing about, and life was sweet.

Years passed, Cajunmania subsided, the Ritz went seafood and renamed itself Delmonico’s, and a onetime Ritz chef named Eddie Herbert sneaked off to Santa Monica to start his own place, Lincoln Bay Cafe, with partner Dimitrius Zafiris. In context, at least, it looked like sneaking off. Not a single searchlight was on hand for Lincoln Bay’s opening last year, and the new restaurant doesn’t boast even one brass rail or semiprivate A-list booth; it’s only had a wine license for a few weeks.

Besides treating Pico Boulevard to a dash of high gloss, the Ritz introduced a lot of people around Los Angeles to Cajun food, but not always in the most authentic way. As a result, many California restaurants labored under the delusion that gumbo was a stew of beef, oysters and bell peppers, although there aren’t a lot of cattle in the bayous. The essential elements of real gumbo are the browned flour called roux and a flavoring of either okra or file (ground sassafras leaves).

I don’t know whether Herbert had anything to do with the old Ritz gumbo, but Lincoln Bay does rather better by Cajun food. Big Al’s gumbo, as the menu calls it, has a meaty broth with earthy, smoky aromas. I can almost detect swamp and bayou among the rice, chicken, shrimp and mild sausage. Likewise with the jambalaya, with its celery-and-bell-pepper flavorings in a tomato sauce, again with rice, chicken, shrimp and sausage.

The most Louisianian element appears in the dish called Creole cassoulet. It’s topped with passable duck confit and baby back ribs (oven- rather than pit-barbecued), but the soul of the dish is the savory, aromatic red beans with sausage. They’re very close to New Orleans red beans and rice, and I notice that red beans and rice, as well as other Louisiana dishes such as shrimp remoulade, join the menu on Tuesday nights.

But Lincoln Bay is not a Louisiana restaurant. Call it a vaguely California-cuisine joint, a little French, a little Italian, you name it. The exterior has a particularly low profile, as California restaurants go. Its pale-yellow-and-dusty-tan color scheme and “Eat Here” sign that’s half-obscured by a tree are not exactly calculated to pull in West Side foodies. Inside, we find a more encouraging story: two moderately spacious and airy rooms ornamented with paintings of vegetables. If the walls were just white, instead of pale yellow and brown, the place might suggest the more hopeful sort of art gallery.

The menu shines in the appetizer department. The very distinctive vegetable antipasto seems more Provencal than anything else. There’s a braised leek in the middle, with sweet yellow beets on one side, crunchy celery root in mustard on the other, and off toward the tip of the leek a mass of pickled mushrooms and some egg-sized eggplants, both lightly cloaked in thick tomato sauce.

The appetizers play off recent restaurant trends very capably. The Italianate grilled eggplant is particularly light and refreshing, the long slices resting in a slightly sweet, fresh tomato sauce with a couple of snow-white buds of mozzarella dotted around the plate. The crayfish with asparagus and lemon-dill sauce revives an old nouvelle-cuisine idea. You can get a credible Southwesternish appetizer of shrimp in jalapeno-cilantro sauce. Romaine salad with garlic, anchovies and Pecorino Romano doesn’t describe itself as an eggless Caesar, but that’s what it is.

Mediterranean pikilia may reflect the fact that Herbert has a Greek partner and maitre d’. It consists of five eastern-Mediterranean dips: hummus, taramosalata , cucumbers with mint and yogurt, an odd sauce that seems to be made of pureed tarragon-flavored eggplant, and a hairy-chested Kalamata olive puree. The fried calamari have impressively crisp breading, though they’re a little on the chewy side.

The pastas include some novel varieties, but the sauces often seem diluted, as if the pasta isn’t drained sufficiently before being put on the plate. This creates problems for the farfalla with crayfish in an American cream-and-tomato sauce--a mild sauce to begin with. The pastas without sauce come through best, such as the rigatoni with smoked turkey, arugula and pine nuts. And orecchiette with corn kernels, asparagus and mozzarella is brilliant, light and fresh and a tiny bit sweet.

The entrees seem tame, positively continental, particularly after the inventiveness of the appetizers: a decent roast chicken; a skirt steak marinated in port and served with a slug of blue cheese on top; a veal shank in meat-glaze sauce with diced vegetables and saffron basmati rice, the sauce giving a rather sweet impression, as if it involved raisins; a roasted duck breast with couscous in a similar sauce, but with an unwelcome layer of melted duck fat. The kitchen does a good job on soft-shell crab with garlic, though.

I wouldn’t come here for the tiramisu , orange chocolate mousse or even the eggy New Orleans bread pudding, but two desserts stand out. The creme brulee isn’t too sweet, and it gets the sugar crust just right, crisp and paper thin. Pecan “diamonds” are worth a visit, though, if you like pecan pie (that’s what this is, cut in lozenges). Cajunmania may be dead, but pecan pie lives on.

Lincoln Bay Cafe, 1928 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica; (310) 396-4039. Open Tuesday through Sunday for dinner, Tuesday through Friday for lunch. Beer and wine. All major credit cards. Dinner for two, food only, $33-$53.

Suggested dishes: grilled eggplant, $4.75; vegetable antipasto, $5.50; shrimp in jalapeno - cilantro sauce, $6.75; asparagus with crayfish, $6.75; orecchiette with corn, asparagus and mozzarella, $8.50; soft-shell crab with garlic, $18.50; pecan diamonds, $4.50.