A Latin Love Affair

Caramba! The throaty voice of Cuban sensation Albita soars as I sit at the bar at Ciudad sipping a mojito, a kind of Cuban rum collins. It’s slightly sweet, suffused with lime and mint, and delicious with strips of seed-encrusted flatbread. As the music segues into the lilt and bounce of Buena Vista Social Club, my friends arrive, a bit out of sorts from negotiating the unfamiliar maze of downtown L.A.’s one-way streets.

These days, opening a serious restaurant downtown, where most places are packed at lunch but hard to fill at night, is a bold move. And opening one at the bottom of the Union Bank building, set back and hard to see from the street, is even bolder. It also takes a certain confidence to paint the interior an eye-popping citrus yellow tinged with green. But then Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, partners now for almost 17 years and friends for even more, have never made the expected moves.

They met in the ‘70s, when both worked in the kitchen at Le Perroquet, one of Chicago’s most formidable French restaurants. When they decided to open a restaurant together, however, it wasn’t French at all, but the eccentric and eclectic City Cafe on Melrose Avenue, where the two cooked up incredible food on a couple of burners in the back of the minuscule storefront. When they opened City Restaurant on La Brea Avenue four years later in 1985, City Cafe was renamed Border Grill and went full-tilt Mexican. Then came a second Border Grill in a former brewery on 4th Street in Santa Monica. (Border Grill on Melrose and City Restaurant closed in 1994.)

Now those Too Hot Tamales of cable TV fame have reincarnated City as Ciudad (Spanish for “city”), a tribute to the cuisines of the great Latin urban centers. It’s a beguiling idea, and what fun for these two intrepid travelers to create a menu that includes dishes from Havana to Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona to Lima. Though the two pitch in from time to time in the kitchen, the chef is Danielle Reed, who worked with the late Patrick Clark at both the Hay Adams in Washington, D.C., and Tavern on the Green in Manhattan, where she also had her own restaurant, Aquamarine.

For Ciudad’s quirky design, architect (and Milliken’s husband) Josh Schweitzer has borrowed the whimsical motifs and juicy pastels of the ‘50s. Chairs and tables are painted the same lemon-lime as the walls. Murals look as if somebody with a paintbrush has tangoed right up those walls and onto the ceiling, making loopy black lines all the way. Waiters are dressed in sherbet-colored embroidered guayaberas. Dishes and glassware are splashed with colorful geometric designs. Like Border Grill and City, the noise level makes conversation difficult, but this isn’t the kind of place to linger for hours anyway.

The best way to enjoy Ciudad is to go with friends and order a slew of the entradas, or starters. Almost all of them are good. I love the salad of crisp romaine hearts draped with strips of roasted chile in a vinaigrette punctuated with Cabrales, a blue cheese from mountainous northern Spain. Another excellent appetizer combines arugula leaves with roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and julienned celery root in a lemony dressing. Marinated mariscos is a platter of assorted shellfish garnished with avocado and pink grapefruit. I never tire of papas rellenos, ovals of mashed potato stuffed with an earthy oxtail stew, or the quinoa fritters served with a spunky Catalan romesco sauce. Even the plantain gnocchi have an intriguing texture and taste beneath the green blanket of tomatillo sauce and cream. Tamale lovers should definitely try the diminutive green Puerto Rican tamales with their tender stewed pork, olive and raisin stuffing.

This is lighthearted yet gutsy cooking. The kitchen revels in bold flavors and exotic ingredients. Look to the page of especialidads for some of the most interesting dishes here. The Honduran ceviche comes served in a martini glass with shrimp, scallops and chunks of fresh pineapple bobbing in a coconut- and cilantro-laced marinade. That touch of pineapple makes

the seafood sing. Other noteworthy specials are the Mexican red snapper steamed with coconut in a banana leaf and the pounded and grilled filet mignon garnished with chimichurri sauce and a fried egg. And there are always a couple of vegetarian options such as Latin succotash made with fat nuggets of hominy in addition to the usual corn.

I’m harder pressed to find as many platos principales, or main courses, to admire. There’s a terrific Argentine rib eye stuffed with jalapenos and whole garlic cloves. The imported free-range beef is a tasty, chewy cut that’s even better smeared with a little fiery chimichurri sauce. Grilled calf’s liver with pearl onion ragout is wonderful, a thick slab of liver perfectly pink at the center, except on my last visit it came cut into small pieces (and overcooked) on a bed of red cabbage. Roasted Cuban-style chicken is satisfying, too, accompanied by Puerto Rican rice, fried plantains and yucca.

But the huge, shaggy lamb shank looks unappetizing hanging over its bowl, decorated with a clump of julienned serrano ham and half-submerged in broth. It doesn’t help that the meat is bland and stringy. Those hefty beef short ribs (deboned) deserve something better than their overly sweet barbecue sauce, which, to tell the truth, doesn’t taste all that different from the bottled stuff.

The wine list continues the Latin theme with an intriguing selection from Spain, Chile, California, Argentina and Portugal. Ciudad’s wine buyer has done some homework, making a meal here a wonderful opportunity to taste some of the best wines from emerging wine regions.

A word of caution: Main courses are huge enough to rule out desserts for all but the most seasoned trenchermen. The rest of us can always share. You’ll want to taste the tres leches cake, which is soaked in three milks--regular, evaporated and condensed. Don’t miss the pineapple upside-down cake made with fresh pineapple instead of the canned our mothers used. There’s also a humongous wedge of diablo fudge cake and a rather cloying date bar topped with ice cream. The real treat here is the rum sampler, your choice of any three of Ciudad’s sipping rums, served with a glass of ice and simple syrup for sweetening.

Urban and hip, Ciudad’s celebration of Latin food gives the downtown dining scene a much-needed infusion of exuberance. Come for lunch, come for dinner, but also mambo on down for cuchifrito, or snacks, served at the bar from 3 to 7 every weekday afternoon.

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CIUDAD

CUISINE: Latin. AMBIENCE: Quirky downtown restaurant that celebrates the ‘50s with pastel decor, squiggly murals, retro tableware and bar with tropical drinks. BEST DISHES: romaine hearts, papas rellenos, Honduran ceviche, grilled Argentine rib eye, Cuban-style roast chicken, succotash. WINE PICKS: 1977 Bodegas Morgadio Albarino, Rias Baixas, Spain; 1994 Bodegas Roda “Roda I” Reserva, Rioja. FACTS: 445 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles; (213) 486-5171. Lunch weekdays; dinner daily; cuchifrito from 3 to 7 p.m. weekdays. Dinner appetizers, $5 to $8; main courses, $12 to $22. Corkage $8. Validated parking in Union Plaza garage at lunch; valet parking at night.