RESTAURANT REVIEW : Epiphany in an Eatery on La Brea

Sitting next to the fountain in the atrium at Campanile in the early afternoon, I suddenly lost my friend Bernard. He was seated right across from me, we’d been talking about something at least quasi-profound and suddenly, he wasn’t there.

Oh, he was there in body, but his attention receded so entirely from our conversation that when I stopped talking mid-sentence he didn’t notice. I might have sprouted wings or breathed fire and he wouldn’t have blinked. He was a thousand miles away.

After maybe a minute, his eyes spun back into focus. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled, and pointed to his chicken sandwich.

I wrested the sandwich from him and took a bite. The bread was olive bread from the restaurant’s adjoining La Brea Bakery. The filling combined chicken, Kalamata olives, roasted garlic tartar sauce and radicchio. The overall impression was a bright freshness so lively, it was like having a small chorus of rowdy flavors whooping it up in my mouth.

Over the years, I’ve had many such moments while dining at Campanile--a series of epiphanies about how good seasonal, fresh and often fairly simple food can taste in the hands of Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton, the restaurants chef-owners. Now such moments can be had in the light of day: Campanile recently opened for lunch.

Thus far, the lunch crowd clusters toward the front of the restaurant, around the bright tiled fountain, under the skylights in the courtyard of the castle-like studio Charlie Chaplin had built and then handed over as a divorce settlement to his child bride Lita Grey.

The lunch menu, which changes weekly, is more casual than at dinner, and notably less expensive, though the service is, as ever, gracious and otherwise impeccable.

From the antipasto selection, it’s best to try a sampling of three or four--otherwise it’s impossible to make a decision. But don’t miss the lightly pickled beets with fresh horseradish, a brilliant marriage of two unlikely roots. Also recommended: smoky roasted eggplant with basil, and intensely flavored roasted potato-and-onion salad.

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Among the other appetizers, there might be a smooth white bean soup, served with a hank of rapini; a simple salad of mixed greens with a slice of toasted multi-grain bread topped with Parmesan; baby artichokes filled with fresh spinach, bacon, chewy bread crumbs, shredded olives and topped with herbed mayonnaise.

The hamburger--thick, juicy ground steak with Gorgonzola cheese--is like a hamburger you might make at home, and is served with beer-battered onions rings so tasty you only wish you could make them in your own kitchen.

A brisket sandwich, however, made with thick Italian bread, was so dominated by the bread and red cabbage sauerkraut that the thin layer of mild-tasting brisket was soundly overwhelmed.

There is also a small selection of pastas and entrees. A bowl of torn pasta (wide, flappy irregular pieces, lightly oiled) was topped with a smattering of fresh basil pesto, cannellini beans and a miniature scorched tree of deliciously bitter grilled frisee. As a friend put it, “It’s like eating beautiful torn-up envelopes made of really good pasta matter.”

The risotto cake had all the virtues of risotto--creaminess, integrity of rice grains, subtlety--plus exterior crunch. The cake was surrounded by tiny, plump steamed clams, small heaps of fresh, lightly steamed spinach, and, tucked behind the clam shells, some of the most adorable, hilarious spicy little Spanish sausages--Vienna sausages gone to heaven.

Desserts at lunch, as opposed to dinner, are presented far more simply, and therefore lack most of the contrasting components that make the dinner desserts so complex and often astounding. Midday, the fresh, sexy date tart is served naked on the plate, without its nighttime netting of golden spun sugar. The intense, almost cake-like lemon tart is garnished with only a length of candied orange rind. The rustic pear tart wears a plume of plain whipped cream, unbedizened by caramel sauce. But don’t take this as a complaint: Simplicity becomes these pastries; even without their evening finery, they’re inarguably some of the very best desserts in town.

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Campanile, 642 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 938-1447. Lunch Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday. Beer and wine at lunch, full bar at dinner. Valet parking. Major credit cards. Lunch for two, food only, $15 to $55.