OC LIVE : Fashion Island Outpost Is Up to Puck

The sun never sets on Wolfgang Puck’s empire. California’s favorite Austrian chef is everywhere at the moment; in recent months, he has opened Wolfgang Puck Cafes at Fashion Island, the Irvine Spectrum and in Woodland Hills and has expanded his Wolfgang Puck Express line of takeout pizza joints (you now can find them in Gelson’s markets and at Los Angeles International Airport).

Despite his dizzying pace, his standards aren’t flagging. I’ve been eating at the new Fashion Island restaurant and can report that everything is shipshape there. Puck’s cafes are run by a management company named for him, but he still chooses the menu, personally trains the chefs and physically works in the kitchen during the opening phase of a restaurant. Puck may be a celebrity, but he’s also a working man, and that seems to motivate the staff, from managers to dishwashers.

However, none of this means the Fashion Island branch is exempt from SMRS: Shopping Mall Restaurant Syndrome. During peak hours, the restaurant is apt to be noisy, crowded, frenetic and disorganized. Here’s one of the reasons: Enter this vibrant, slightly garish room and the first thing you notice are children--lots of them--with their parents in tow, all here to eat the famous Puck pizzas from the wood-burning oven, and the gooey cafe desserts.

As ever, Puck’s wife, the eccentric designer Barbara Lazaroff, takes responsibility for the cafe’s decor. This is a long, low-slung room fitted with Puck’s trademark open kitchen. The walls are tiled with broken ceramics in bright colors; sketches recalling the style of Thomas Nast hang above the narrow vinyl booths. The people who wait on you, if often confused, at least are wearing ultra-smart uniforms.

The menu leads with tempting appetizers and salads, many of which subtly demonstrate why Wolfgang has become a household name. Take something simple--say, chopped vegetable salad. It’s a pyramidal mound of white corn and chopped carrots, celery, green beans, onions and tomatoes, distinguished by the excellence of the ingredients.

A salad of small spinach leaves and hearts of romaine is enlivened by bits of apple wood-smoked bacon, blue cheese and crunchy caramelized pecans. Chinois chicken salad, the most popular dish in the restaurant, is a blend of shredded lettuce, chicken meat and fried noodles in a spicy sesame oil, honey and mustard dressing. It’s a pretty big salad--you might prefer a half order.

The best starter of all might be vegetable spring rolls, fried nicely crisp (but not at all greasy) and daubed with a complex mandarin orange glaze.

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Needless to say, at a Puck outpost, pizza rules. You can smell the wood-burning oven from the moment you enter, making these thin-crusted pies an ever-present temptation. No one uses tastier pepperoni than Puck, and the cracker-like smoked salmon pizza, cooled down with dill cream and chives, is as good as the version at Puck’s famous Spago.

The cumin-spiked lamb sausage pizza is not for the faint of heart. In the sweet onion and roasted pepper topping lurk minuscule shards of the dangerously fiery habanero chile. Vegetarians should sample the spinach and mushroom pizza. The vegetable toppings retain all their texture and goodness.

Puck’s pastas have changed slightly since his first cafe opened. The list still is headed by Grandma Puck’s linguine, a rich pasta topped with a creamy ragout of minced chicken. And I’m wild about wild mushroom tortellini: chewy, buttery pasta doughnuts mingling garlic, Parmesan cheese and green herbs.

These favorites have been joined by a few less interesting choices, a faux pad Thai--really, more like Sichuan-style noodles, topped with shrimp, crushed peanuts and too much ginger--and penne burdened with an excess of sweet peas, prosciutto, Italian parsley and shaved Parmesan.

The sandwiches are great kid pleasers. Smoked turkey breast comes piled high on enormous disks of herbed focaccia bread along with lettuce, tomato, red onion and two kinds of cheese. In another sandwich, grilled vegetables such as eggplant and tomato are dressed with balsamic vinaigrette and wedged between slabs of goat cheese.

The restaurant also has expanded the selection of main dishes, here known as Cafe Specials. Peerless rotisserie chicken is available in two styles, either simply roasted with rosemary and garlic or smeared with a sweet, sticky barbecue sauce. Cafe meatloaf is a dense, lean version of an American classic, but with so much cumin it tastes like Southwestern cuisine.

Blackened catfish with Cajun spices and jambalaya rice is a lesson in how this dish should be prepared. The spices are seared, not burned, into the fish, sealing in the natural juices.

The two best desserts are a caramelized apple tart and the fabulously fudgy chocolate souffle cake, both served warm. Unsweetened hand-whipped cream tops the desserts; for me, an important detail. Chains like Claim Jumper and the Cheesecake Factory may do more volume, but you can keep their giant, sugary desserts, smothered with lifeless, aerosol whipped cream.

Puck knows that it is ingredients, and how they are treated, that matter. So do most of his customers.

Wolfgang Puck Cafe is moderately priced. Appetizers and salads are $3.50 to $8. Pizzas and sandwiches are $6.50 to $14.50. Pastas are $8.50 to $11.50. Cafe specials are $9.75 to $15.50.

* WOLFGANG PUCK CAFE

* Fashion Island, 841 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach.

* (714) 720-9653.

* Sundays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays till 11 p.m.

* Visa, MasterCard.