STYLE / RESTAURANTS : A Little Bit Country

Beverly Hills now has more Italian restaurants and cafes than you can shake a bread stick at. The new Jacksons Farm on Beverly Drive, run by Alan Jackson, who also owns Jacksons in West Hollywood, marches to a different drummer. An art-directed conceptual “farm,” the space looks more like a country store. The rural references are minimal: a row of rosemary topiaries, a few pitchforks on the wall, a weathered tin sign that reads “Trail’s End,” a toy wood barn painted red. High on one wall is an oil painting of a barefoot boy on a horse fording a stream.

The original menu (pared down and laminated since the restaurant opened several months ago) explained the farm idea. The kitchen, under the direction of Raphael Lunetta, who used to share cooking duties with Josiah Citrin at Jacksons, bakes all the breads, smokes the fish, prepares the terrines and salads and cures the olives. “These are some of the reasons we call this place a farm rather than a cafe or restaurant,” stated the menu. “We don’t milk our own cows or grow our own produce, but we do just about everything else.”

The room, with twirling ceiling fans and an open kitchen at the back, has an appealing, old-fashioned look. (It was once a hardware store.) A deli case along one side is stocked with salads, cheeses, good ready-made sandwiches and pastries such as a shaggy chocolate-hazelnut “pa^te.” Rustic handcrafted breads stacked behind the counter lure strollers in for a loaf of country bread or a cookie, to pick up some takeout or stay for lunch.

Since the restaurant doesn’t accept reservations, people wait on the sidewalk, chatting in front of the handful of outdoor tables. Two lovers whisper in a corner over bowls of white-corn soup. A trio of women precariously balance their Nicoise salads on a wobbly table that would be cramped for two. And a husky-voiced blonde regales her friend with the story of her latest audition, while her beribboned Maltese tangles a leash around her ankles. Although the hostesses, in suits and full makeup, seem overdressed for the farm, and the coiffed maitre d’, one night in a double-breasted houndstooth jacket, looks, well, like a city slicker, I like the casual feel of a summer meal here. The tables welcome diners with silverware rolled in a napkin, a basket of earthy seven-grain and purple-flecked olive bread and chilled sweet butter.

To start, there’s a good shrimp cocktail with a spunky, fresh-tasting cocktail sauce, meaty crab cakes with a light tartar sauce laced with fresh tarragon or warm asparagus in a sherry mustard vinaigrette. Credible house-smoked salmon is draped over a mound of warm Yukon gold potatoes so monumental it’s like eating a bowl of mashed potatoes flavored with a little salmon as a first course.

The restaurant is open all through the afternoon so you can come in for a sandwich or a burger anytime. The farm burger has a nice glossy bun and decent enough meat, and you can get it with either Swiss or cheddar cheese. A grilled-chicken sandwich is fine, but the lobster club arrives on soft, spongy bread that should be really toasted, not just passed over the grill. And for $14, more lobster, please.

Poached salmon with baby artichokes, oven-dried tomatoes and tiny onions is a light, flavorful summer meal. Rack of lamb with garlic mashed potatoes and a pyramid of eggplant layered with tomatoes becomes a fine supper, too. Perfectly grilled ahi tuna comes with an odd ragu of tender, herb-filled gnocchi with asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes and Kalamata olives. Since we’re down on the farm, the rotisserie chicken should be a standout, but it’s overcooked and a bit puny for $15. And though the roasted red potatoes that come with it are good, the green and yellow wax beans have been doused with so much vinegar that the fumes rise from the plate. Icy cold organic tomato salad is stacked tall, alternating red and yellow slices, topped with a whimsical red tomato hat. Unfortunately, the vinaigrette, also heavy on the vinegar, doesn’t show off these prize tomatoes to best advantage.

Thick slices of moist brioche pudding, barely sweetened and strewn with sun-dried cherries, is the kind of dessert you might expect from a farmhouse kitchen, but I doubt it would be decorated with zigzagged spurts of caramel sauce. Nectarine and cherry cobbler, more crisp than cobbler, has a ball of good vanilla bean ice cream melting in the middle: excellent. A roughly formed little pear tart needs only a less tough crust to be delicious. The best dessert is roasted plums, sour and juicy, with a crumbly, mascarpone-rich shortcake.

The short wine list includes some very good bottles, such as Marimar Torres Chardonnay “Don Miguel Vineyard” from Sonoma County’s Green Valley, Silverado’s Merlot and Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir from Oregon. But you’re expected to drink them out of wide-mouthed tumblers instead of proper wineglasses. If they were simple country wines, no matter, but it’s a shame when you’re drinking--and paying for--wines of this quality. I wonder if the rare 1983 Salon “Le Mesnil” Blanc de Blancs, at $133, is served in the same glasses?

The service could be better. Waiters and counter people, unsure of what to do next, mill about while you wait to order, or for your food or check to arrive. The cashier is nibbling cookies; no one seems to notice what needs doing. And customers’ patience wears thin.

Jacksons Farm reminds me of a ferme-auberge I once visited in the French countryside. Unlike the unpretentious farmhouse cooking I was expecting--vegetables just plucked from the garden, homemade pa^te and foie gras --that place offered up elaborate dishes under fancy silver cloches! Jacksons Farm hasn’t gone quite that far, but the food is sometimes too fussy. The more it’s primped and stacked and sauced and garnished, the further the idea of simple cooking recedes in the distance.

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JACKSONS FARM

CUISINE: American. AMBIENCE: Country store in the city, with twirling ceiling fans, green library chairs, a long deli case full of salads, cheeses, pastries. BEST DISHES: crab cakes, shrimp cocktail, ready-made sandwiches, poached salmon, rack of lamb, roasted plums with mascarpone shortcake, brioche with sun-dried cherries. WINE PICKS: Marimar Torres Chardonnay “Don Miguel Vineyard” 199 2 , Sancerre “Le Chene” Lucien Crochet 1993, Silverado Merlot 1992. FACTS: 439 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills; (310) 273-5578. Open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Dinner for two, food only, $39 to $70. Corkage $10. No reservations.