First Impressions : Continental in Beverly Hills Almost Ready for Prime Time

A new restaurant pitched at a young Hollywood crowd has debuted in Beverly Hills. It’s called Continental, but the food isn’t. Weekdays, you can do lunch. And in the evening, in the likely case that night owls on the prowl feel like hanging till the wee hours, the restaurant purports to stay open to a wide-awake 2 a.m. Every night. The bartender will keep making those green apple martinis until closing time.

Set in a Deco building just east of La Cienega Boulevard, Continental boasts tall wrap-around windows, a bar with a TV turned to sports and a couple of curvaceous leather booths so over-scaled that a group of diners seated there looks like tiny finger puppets from across the room.

The decor could have been assembled from the spare parts of a “Mad Max” set. It goes with black, which is what everyone seems to be wearing, but it’s not exactly inviting. The dining room, in fact, is fenced in like a prison yard. And all the surfaces are so hard that even when the place is less than half-full, the noise level is daunting. All the better if you’re more intent on people-watching than on having a conversation over dinner or drinks.

The menu manages to encompass just about every trend in the Euro-Asian vein, from Chinese chicken salad and Louisiana crab cakes to mirin-glazed salmon and macadamia-crusted halibut.

The chef, Jason Seagel, didn’t work at Roy’s in Hawaii for naught. Come hungry: Appetizers are as large as main courses. That means that unless you’re planning on sharing, order that burrito-sized lobster crepe as dinner, rather than a starter. With its silky Chardonnay sauce, it’s a pleasantly old-fashioned dish. “Firecracker” spring rolls stuffed with blackened chicken, avocado and vegetables get the spicy Ranch dressing treatment. The blackened chicken pizza with a smear of black beans isn’t bad either.

I doubt, though, that anyone from Bologna would be able to identify the penne as Bolognese, sauced as it is with wild mushrooms and what the menu calls a “marinara meat sauce.”

The kitchen tends to slightly overcook fish, but a filet mignon, ordered rare, makes a fine supper, served in a thyme-infused Cabernet sauce with Gorgonzola gratin potatoes.

When our dessert--name me the person who can resist Bananas Foster--is a long time coming, our waiter offers the fact that the chef cares so much about presentation in explanation. As presented, though, it’s just ice cream scooped into a stemmed glass with the bananas on top. Well, you know what they say about art: The hardest part is stripping away everything that’s extraneous.

On the plus side, the service couldn’t be more personable, if a little scattered. At this point, Continental feels like a dress rehearsal for a restaurant where everyone involved is still busy learning their parts.

BE THERE

Continental, 8400 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills; (323) 782-9717. Open Mondays through Saturdays for dinner (till 2 a.m.); Mondays through Fridays for lunch (till 3 p.m.). Dinner appetizers, $5 to $12; main courses, $12 to $25. Valet parking.