The Zen Family Way

In a highly designed room, full of glass and gleaming surfaces and a view of the sun setting over the Pacific, the young would-be guru at this place called Zenzero has some advice before we contemplate our meal: “We need to forget our old ways of thinking, open our minds. Let yourself experience a new way of eating.”

What’s so groundbreaking? This waiter is simply trying to tell us that food here is served family-style--the way we’ve been eating in our homes and in Chinese restaurants for years--so everyone at the table can try a little of everything.

Zenzero is the much-anticipated restaurant from longtime Chinois chef Kazuto Matsusaka, housed in the space that was once home to Fennel, which was mysteriously boarded up for months. The unveiling reveals a dramatic, slightly larger restaurant (Zenzero took over an additional space next door) with artfully presented Franco-Asian cuisine and a well-chosen, fairly priced wine list.

You and your open mind might try the fried whole fish (perhaps a meaty New Zealand red snapper), nicely crisped; Chinese air-dried duck with fruit chutney; stir-fried spicy chicken, which you scoop into lettuce cups and sprinkle with julienned melon and carrots and spiced peanuts; vegetarian wok-seared rice cakes; slices of grilled skirt steak served over a bed of sweet curried vegetables . . . .

You eat all this the Zenzero way, with beautifully lacquered chopsticks. The waiter, however, has some Zen-like relief for the staunchly Eurocentric fork-ophile: “We do still have the old-fashioned utensils.”

* Zenzero, 1535 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 451-4455. Entrees $13.50-$24.50.