Style : RESTAURANTS : TABLES BY THE BAY

When I go back to the Bay Area, I like to frequent old haunts. Places like Fringale, Zuni Cafe, Bizou, Tadich Grill, the cafe upstairs at Chez Panisse, the Cheese Board for baguettes still warm from the oven. Like a favorite cashmere sweater, these places are comforting and never disappoint. But on a recent trip, hungry for adventure, I forwent familiar pleasures and checked out some of the newer places in town. These are three of the best.

*

HAWTHORNE LANE: In San Francisco, the most anticipated opening of the year has been Hawthorne Lane, former Postrio chefs Anne and David Gingrass’ new restaurant. From the graceful, cast-metal hawthorne-branch door handle to the stunning cherry-wood bar, the designers delight in the details. Set in a dramatic, ivy-covered brick building off a narrow lane in the South of Market area, Hawthorne Lane is really two restaurants: a casual cafe/bar where you can get pizzas and salads, and the more formal restaurant in back.

Two beautifully crafted oval cabinets topped with yellow marble divide the dining room. Just behind is a saltwater tank where live spot prawns wave their long antennae. Cooks in flat white caps work in an immense open kitchen outfitted with a wood-burning brick oven and grill. The Gingrasses, who opened Wolfgang Puck’s high-volume Postrio, know how to run a restaurant. Everyone, from the manager who greets you to the waiters and runners, is a pro.

To start, we have the rosy steamed prawns piled on a platter with ribbons of cucumber salad. Seared foie gras comes with a satiny stuffed onion and a sticky, tart-sweet apricot sauce that’s a perfect foil for the duck liver. Hand-chopped lamb tartare is covered with a drift of summer truffles: fabulous. And I loved the tempura lobster, claws sheathed in a lacy batter, tail presented in the shell, with a tomato-mint vinaigrette. Tomato soup tastes more like tomato ragu , however, and grilled anchovies are mushy.

Roasted chicken is moist and redolent of smoke and herbs. It comes with sauteed sweet white corn and fresh fava beans and a miniature charlotte mold filled with tender corn spoon bread. Sauteed local petrale sole arrives with an extravagant ruffle of deep-fried fin standing up on the plate. “It’s a European thing,” the waiter says, “entirely edible.” The sole’s delicate flavor and texture play well against bright lobster and potato hash. I like the maple-glazed quail, too, very pink and not at all crispy, sitting on potato gratin. But tomato-based sauce shows up twice, with the sole and again with Atlantic cod. Main courses could use some editing, and desserts aren’t that compelling. Next time, I’ll splurge and have two first courses, which are, by far, the most interesting dishes here. Still, Hawthorne Lane’s is an impressive debut.

HAWTHORNE LANE, 22 Hawthorne St., San Francisco; (415) 777-9779. Wine picks: Ici/La Bas Pinot Noir “La Cagoule” 1993, Turley Zinfandel “Aida Vineyard” 1993. Dinner for two, food only, $60 to $90. Corkage $10.

*

OLIVETO: When Paul Bertolli, chef at Chez Panisse downstairs (that’s the more formal, prix fixe restaurant) left in 1992 after 10 years, he wanted to get out of the kitchen for a while. After doing some consulting work, he’s back--at Oliveto in Oakland. Owners Maggie and Bob Klein have made Bertolli a partner and allowed him to revamp the menu. His aesthetic is very like Chez Panisse’s--how could it not be?--but his rustic menu at Oliveto looks more toward northern Italy than France.

We sat at a table covered with butcher paper, in the upstairs dining room with its earth-toned plaster walls and summery flowers. First came a platter of heirloom tomatoes: big beefy discs of gold marbled with crimson, juicy, ripe red ones, shining yellow-orange orbs and a cluster of tiny cherry tomatoes on the stem. A splash of Bertolli’s own aged aceto balsamico brings out all their flavor. I managed to nab the last of the warm pigeon salads. What luck! I can’t remember when I last ate a pigeon with this much taste.

Instead of rich, oversauced pastas tricked up with too many ingredients, Bertolli serves linguine sauced only with pancetta , garlic and arugula. And superb agnolotti of veal, lightly stuffed with a juicy veal forcemeat, come six or seven in a shallow bowl with a few spoonfuls of rich stock, all the better to appreciate the pasta itself. This was the single best dish that night.

Main courses are supremely simple: a flavorful piece of steak with a smear of anchoiade, a gutsy combination of anchovies, olive oil and vinegar. Served with a bundle of green and wax beans and crispy potatoes tossed with soft leeks, it is a satisfying plate of food. “Lamb cooked three ways” combines sliced, roasted local lamb, a tender little chop and a length of garlicky sausage. We finished with a wedge of custard tart inset with sweet slivers of Gravenstein apples and then tiny balls of pale green melon sorbet in a footed bowl. This is truly seasonal food. Bertolli is a purist whose intelligence and integrity show in all he does.

OLIVETO, 5655 College Ave., Oakland; (510) 547-5356. Cuisine: Northern Italian. Wine picks: Leonildo Pieropan Soave Classico Superiore 1993, Elio Altare Dolcetta d’Alba 1993. Dinner for two, food only, $44 to $63. Corkage $10.

*

RUBICON: When New York restaurateur Drew Nieporent opened Rubicon in San Francisco, he hired Larry Stone, one of America’s most respected wine professionals,as wine director. With its wide-ranging, fairly priced list and its award-winning, wine-savvy chef, Traci Des Jardins, Rubicon is drawing wine lovers from all over the country.

Yet on a recent Friday night,there was no scene to speak of, only the quiet hum of a well-run restaurant. The decor is understated, with olished dark wood, rough brick walls brightened with paintings splashed with color. During Rubicon’s earliest days, Stone used Riedel crystal, the expensive, thin-lipped glasses from Austria, in shapes to suit each wine. But our Dageneau Pouilly-Fume isn’t poured into Riedel glasses. “You have to ask for them,” a waiter explains. And now there’s a charge of $3 per glass. Stone later told us breakage had forced him to charge a crystal fee. I think it’s an odd policy.

But I can’t stay too grumpy with wines such as Marcassin Chardonnay and J.J. Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese on the list. Stone picks up older wines at auction and has been buying from the likes of Leroy and Ramonet for years (He used to be the sommelier at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago).

Des Jardins has created a sophisticated menu appropriate for the wines. It is straightforwardly worded, with none of her mentor Joachim Splichal’s whimsy. To begin, there’s beautiful seared scallops surrounding rich, dreamy truffled mashed potatoes. A special of crab cake--a solid round of crab meat, shaggy with crunchy bread crumbs and fired with a red pepper roulade--is the best I’ve had on the West Coast. The chilled lobster gazpacho salad--bites of lobster, cucumber, tomato--tastes like a deconstructed gazpacho, a marvelous summer dish. Duck confit salad with crunchy threads of fried potato is dull in comparison.

Muscovy duck breast paired with a Basmati rice cake goes beautifully with a Turley Cellars Zinfandel. Quail are stuffed to bursting with cornbread and nuggets of bacon, set off with by a salad of pearl onions and ma^che. But the best dish that night was a special: a double-cut pork chop served with a dense, delicious polenta cake strewn with fresh peas.

Desserts are impressive: a fragile, pale yellow creme bru^lee with a golden crust of sugar, the plate garnished with rose petals. And a buttery apple tart crowned with an amber haze of spun sugar and a luscious apple ice. There’s also a rich mixed-berry shortcake, split open and heaped with juicy fruit. None of these finales are too sweet, which means you can have your cake and a dessert wine, too. A half-bottle of 1991 Scheurebe Beerenauslese from the extraordinary Austrian producer Alois Kracher would be the perfect finish to a weekend of feasting.

RUBICON, 558 Sacramento St., San Francisco; (415) 434-4100. Cuisine: Contemporary French. Wine picks: Marcassin Gaver Ranch “Upper Barn” Chardonnay 1993, Forman Cabernet Sauvignon 1991. Dinner for two, food only, $64 to $90. Corkage $15. Riedel crystal fee $3 per glass.