Fusion Confusion

Rocco, the long-awaited replacement for Adriano’s in the Glen Center, is a chic, sophisto spot with a clientele that manages to look both rich and bohemian--a neat trick. It’s also one of the few places in town where one can eat in a stylish setting and then repair to an adjacent lounge for first-rate jazz.

The food emphasizes stylistic fusion, as does the music and even the decor, which you could call rustic Italian crossed with SoHo art gallery. The new owners have retained the French doors and windows that were Adriano’s trademark but have added a terra-cotta tile floor and a lot of lurid Expressionist art.

The menu is Italianate, but chef Hiro Raiben is Japanese, and the result is true culinary nonsense. Occasionally his dishes work, but more often they stumble. Fusion can be tough to bring off.

There are certainly high notes. One delicious appetizer is antipasto Ticinese di carni, nothing more than a platter of the air-dried beef bresaola, the even drier carne secca and a top-notch prosciutto, all garnished with pungent, Cremona-style mustard fruits.

A plate of nicely sauteed prawns has a foundation of cooked spinach topped with a tower of straw potatoes, all with a near-perfect butter sauce flavored with the Japanese citrus yuzu. The millefeuille of foie gras, in contrast, is a confusing palette of green apples, more spinach, an inappropriately penetrating orange sauce and one rather tepid, flabby piece of undercooked duck liver.

The chef does well on risotto. His saffron-flavored risotto with spicy sausage is nice, but the various seafood risottos offered as nightly specials are even better. One evening, there was a perfectly stirred mound of arborio rice mingling with tender Santa Barbara prawns. On another evening, he impressed me with a moist concoction enriched with mixed seafood--clams, mussels and shrimp.

But there is inconsistency in many areas. Among the soups, the creamy clam broth and the thick, insipid potato leek soup lack any discernible flavor. One pasta I tried, pansotti alle noci, was properly chewy ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach, but it was marred by a thin, insipid walnut cream sauce.

And many of the chef’s entrees are creatively over the top. Striped bass steamed in a banana leaf gets topped with a lobster champagne sauce, which has little to do with the banana leaf flavor. Filet mignon with wild mushrooms and mashed potatoes is muddled by an apple mustard sauce and yuzu butter, better suited to pork and fish respectively.

The evening improves after the main course. Rocco’s desserts are quite good, especially the soupe aux fruits rouges, a sort of fruit salad in a red wine reduction garnished with tiny meringues, and the creme bru^lee aux pistaches, studded with crushed pistachio nuts.

The good jazz normally begins after 10 p.m., featuring local artists such as Ronald Muldrow, Jim Wright and Bill Cunliffe. I simply view the music as a second dessert.

*

BE THERE

Rocco, 2930 Beverly Glen Circle, Bel-Air. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, dinner 6-11 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday. Parking in lot. Full bar. All major cards. Call (310) 475-9807.