Cool Fusion

Celadon is the kind of restaurant you might expect to find in St. Helena or Rutherford or Yountville, the famous Napa Valley wine towns along California Highway 29.

Consider the menu: hip Asian eclectic. Consider the chef: 34-year-old Greg Cole, who is attracting national notice for the inventive dishes he calls “global comfort food.”

But Celadon is not in the parts of Napa Valley that make it the state’s second-largest tourist attraction after Disneyland. It is in downtown Napa, which attracts a small fraction of the tourists racing up Highway 29 to prettier, more celebrated areas of the valley.

For years, downtown Napa has been known as the place where the workers of the wine industry live. That includes many of the chefs of Napa Valley, Cole among them. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in New York, Cole, who was raised in Westlake Village, worked as a chef at Robert Sinskey Vineyards near Yountville for six years. When he decided to open his own restaurant, he chose downtown Napa, where leases were more affordable.

And there was another reason. He believed Napans were ready for more challenging menus than the traditional American standards served by the city’s chain coffee shops, steak places and fast-food restaurants.

He was right. Cole’s dishes--steaming Asian noodle bowls, seafood satay with spicy peanut sauce, delicate frogs’ legs and bittersweet chocolate pate made with Zinfandel and topped with raspberries--became a hit with the young professionals who work in Napa’s offices and county buildings as well as with vintners from posher parts, almost as soon as his restaurant opened 18 months ago. In October, Celadon earned three of four possible stars from the San Francisco Examiner. And Wine Spectator included Cole in a feature about the nation’s new generation of promising chefs.

But not everyone in Napa went for Cole’s exotic dishes. Some of the town’s older and more conservative diners would go to Celadon, look at an Asian noodle bowl and shake their heads. Their idea of a nice meal, Cole realized, is beef, baked potato, maybe creamed spinach and Scotch.

Instead of rejecting or ignoring their comments, Cole found he could empathize with their wariness. “I love steak,” he says.

When the opportunity arose for him to open a second restaurant, he decided on a place that might appeal to the “other Napa.” He’s opening a steakhouse.

It doesn’t hurt that steak is enjoying a meaty comeback. Restaurants all over the country have been selling more steak than ever in recent years. Even supercool Los Angeles chef Fred Eric is making plans to open a steakhouse. “Steak is big again everywhere,” says Cole, “but it never went out of fashion in Napa. This is a meat-and-potatoes town.”

And so, this summer, 100 yards from Celadon, dozens of workers are restoring a 19th century brick building that Cole plans to open in November as Cole’s Chop House.

“I want to do a very cool, very hip steakhouse. The kind of place my parents used to walk into in 1959.”

Celadon is known as a creative kind of place, but Cole says the Chop House will be simple: “steak on a plate.” Where Celadon’s decor is spare and airy, the Chop House will have black leather booths and a mahogany bar.

By running two restaurants differing wildly in attitude, ambience and menu, Cole says, he hopes to bridge both his own split tastes and the split personality of Napa, the valley’s largest town and its county seat.

At the moment, Napa is still populated largely by winery workers, civil servants and retirees. But it also is becoming a bedroom community for larger cities like Santa Rosa and even San Francisco. As younger professionals move in, they want more than sandwich shops and American Italian cuisine.

The town’s demographics are likely to change even more in three years, when wine baron Robert Mondavi plans to open the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts in downtown Napa, just a few blocks from Cole’s restaurants.

The center will be situated on acres of gardens on the banks of the Napa River. Mondavi predicts it will be the tourist magnet the town has never had, attracting 300,000 visitors a year. They will be able to tour exhibits on the history of food and wine, dine in a cafe that will showcase fruits and vegetables from the center’s gardens, meet chefs and attend outdoor concerts.

Cole says the center is bound to transform Napa from the valley’s sleepy center for government into yet another tourist stop. But he’s not counting on it to keep his restaurants busy. “I’m creating neighborhood gathering spots,” he says. This is important to him in part because his own hometown, Westlake Village, is a planned community that, he says, “had no history.”

Napa, by contrast, has a historical legacy. It was born in the Gold Rush era as a shipping center and is filled with families who have lived there for four or more generations. But a city redevelopment effort in the 1970s ripped the historic heart out, replacing period structures with what many describe as a charmless pedestrian mall and ugly concrete parking structures. When Cole arrived in Napa in 1984, it looked more like his hometown than he might have liked.

He might not have the resources of Mondavi, but Cole is doing what he can to make downtown Napa a nice place to live.

“It’s funny,” Cole says, “my first job as a cook was in the Hungry Hunter restaurant in Thousand Oaks. They served steak, salads and baked potatoes. I guess I’ve come full circle.”

And where will his heart be? Celadon or the Chop House? Cole has trouble answering the question.

“Celadon will be more creative,” he says thoughtfully. “But you know, sometimes we chefs get carried away with doing our reductions, being creative, making fancy things. There’s something that’s appealing to me about the simplicity of a plate with a steak on it. It is not pushing the limits on a creative level, but the simplicity is neat.”

CRAB CAKES WITH SWEET CORN AND PEPPERS AND GRAINY MUSTARD SAUCE

GRAINY MUSTARD SAUCE

1 cup sour cream

1/4 cup white wine

3 tablespoons whole grain mustard

Salt, pepper

CRAB CAKES

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, finely diced

2 stalks celery, finely diced

Kernels from 1 ear white corn

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 red bell pepper, finely diced

1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley

Zest of 1/2 lemon

1/2 pound crab meat, cleaned

1/4 cup mayonnaise

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 cups fresh white bread crumbs

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pinch black pepper

1/4 cup vegetable oil

GRAINY MUSTARD SAUCE

Combine sour cream, white wine, mustard, pinch salt and pinch pepper and mix well.

CRAB CAKES

Heat olive oil in small skillet over medium heat and saute onion, celery and corn kernels 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add bell pepper and cook 1 minute. Remove from heat and add parsley and lemon zest. Let cool.

Combine crab meat, mayonnaise, eggs, bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, hot pepper sauce, salt and pepper in bowl. Add onion mixture and mix well. Divide into 12 equal portions.

Heat vegetable oil in large skillet over medium-low heat. Pan-fry crab cakes in batches until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels. Serve with Grainy Mustard Sauce.

6 appetizer servings. Each serving:

352 calories; 743 mg sodium; 113 mg cholesterol; 25 grams fat; 17 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams protein; 0.39 gram fiber.

BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE PATE WITH ZINFANDEL AND BERRIES

CHOCOLATE PA^TE

1 pound bittersweet chocolate, chopped

3/4 cup Zinfandel or other red wine

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

BERRY SAUCE

2 pints fresh berries, such as raspberries

1/2 cup sugar

CHOCOLATE PATE

Combine chocolate, wine and cream in top of stainless steel double boiler and cook over simmering water over medium heat, stirring frequently, until chocolate melts and mixture is just smooth. (It’s important that chocolate not get too warm.) Remove from heat and mix well with balloon whisk.

Depending on how deep you want the pate, pour into 1 (8x4-inch) or 2 (5x2 1/2-inch) loaf pans lined with parchment or wax paper and refrigerate overnight. Before serving, unmold and slice with knife dipped in hot water.

BERRY SAUCE

Puree berries and sugar in blender until smooth. Serve with Chocolate Pa^te.

8 servings. Each serving:

389 calories; 6 mg sodium; 10 mg cholesterol; 26 grams fat; 47 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 2.87 grams fiber.

CELADON’S SEAFOOD SATAY WITH SPICY PEANUT SAUCE

Greg Cole uses Mexican white prawns to make this seafood satay and prefers natural unsalted peanut butter in the peanut sauce.

GRILLED SEAFOOD SATAY

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

1 stalk lemon grass, sliced

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon salt

2 tablespoons curry powder

2 tablespoons chopped garlic

1/4 cup coriander seeds, toasted and crushed

18 prawns, peeled and deveined

1 (1-pound 2-ounce) halibut fillet, cut into 18 squares

SPICY PEANUT SAUCE

1/2 cup unsalted peanuts

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon chile oil or to taste

Water, optional

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

GRILLED SEAFOOD SATAY

Combine lemon zest and juice, lemon grass, cayenne, olive oil, salt, curry powder, garlic and coriander seeds and mix well.

Add prawns and halibut to marinade and toss to coat. Cover and marinate in refrigerator 6 to 8 hours.

Soak 6 bamboo skewers in water 30 minutes. Alternately thread 3 prawns through top and tail and 3 pieces halibut onto skewers. Grill over medium heat, turning once, until shrimp and halibut are opaque, about 4 minutes.

SPICY PEANUT SAUCE

Chop peanuts in food processor until smooth. Add peanut butter, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, salt and chile oil and process until well combined. If too thick, add water 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency. Stir in cilantro. Serve with Grilled Seafood Satay.

6 servings. Each serving:

302 calories; 2694 mg sodium; 54 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrates; 27 grams protein; 1.64 grams fiber.

SHRIMP GREEN CURRY WITH STIR-FRIED WILD RICE

SHRIMP GREEN CURRY

2 teaspoons oil

2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined

Salt, pepper

1/4 cup green curry paste

1 onion, minced

1 red bell pepper, minced

1 yellow bell pepper, minced

2 tablespoons minced ginger root

1 tablespoon minced garlic

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest and juice of 1 lime

2 (13 1/2-ounce) cans unsweetened coconut milk

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1/2 cup torn basil leaves

1/4 cup cilantro leaves

STIR-FRIED WILD RICE

6 cups water

Pinch salt

1 (6-ounce) container wild rice

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/2 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup soy sauce

SHRIMP GREEN CURRY

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in large skillet over medium heat until haze appears, 2 to 3 minutes. Add shrimp and salt and pepper to taste and saute until pink, about 3 minutes. Remove shrimp from skillet and keep warm.

Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in same skillet over high heat until haze appears. Add curry paste and saute 1 minute. Add onion and red and yellow bell peppers and cook 2 minutes. Add ginger, garlic, lemon and lime zests and cook 3 minutes. Add coconut milk, fish sauce and lime juice and bring to simmer. Cook until slightly reduced, about 10 minutes. Stir in basil and cilantro. Add shrimp and return to simmer. Serve with Stir-Fried Wild Rice.

STIR-FRIED WILD RICE

Bring water and salt to boil in medium saucepan. Add rice and return to boil. Cover, then reduce heat and simmer until rice is tender, about 50 minutes. Drain rice in colander.

Heat canola and sesame oils in large skillet over high heat until haze appears. Add garlic and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add rice, chicken stock and soy sauce and cook until rice is hot, about 5 minutes.

6 servings. Each serving:

577 calories; 2,086 mg sodium; 166 mg cholesterol; 36 grams fat; 36 grams carbohydrates; 33 grams protein; 3.39 grams fiber.