Formally French

The talent pool of top-level chefs in Los Angeles is surprisingly small right now. Though restaurants are opening left and right, there hasn’t been a significant influx of new blood or new ideas in a long while. The same handful of established restaurateurs--with Wolfgang Puck, Joachim Splichal and Nobu Matsuhisa at the top of the list--keep expanding their restaurant empires. They need cooks to staff those places, and the good news is that they are bringing up a new generation of home-grown chefs.

Josiah Citrin is one chef who has broken out of the pack. After working with Splichal at Patina, he was co-chef with childhood friend and fellow chef Raphael Lunetta at the now-defunct Jackson’s in West Hollywood. Then the two of them left to open JiRaffe in Santa Monica in 1996. Now Citrin has gone out on his own with Melisse, the French name for the herb we know as lemon balm.

His new restaurant, on Wilshire Boulevard at 11th Street, is a big step up in ambition. Having decided, at 31, that it’s now or never, Citrin is going for the gold ring with something more formal. And his affection for the French restaurant experience shines through in all the details. The main dining room features a sparkling chandelier as its centerpiece. Walls are sponged ochre and stenciled with floral sprigs. A garden room with a retractable roof and stone fountain that can be closed off for private parties evokes the south of France, while the waiting room off the bar with its stiff, Victorian love seats and library of classics seems to have been lifted from the set of a British mystery film. Tables are set with burgundy-rimmed monogrammed porcelain, French patterned silver and candles shaded with porcelain domes etched with vineyard and chateau scenes. The overall effect is slightly stodgy--very French, in fact.

But it’s a thrill walking into such a grown-up restaurant, where waiters are dressed in suits and ties and the room is full of large, festive groups.

My first meal was impressive. I loved the way Citrin’s salad of Maine lobster played off nuggets of the pristine shellfish against jewel-toned beets with a drizzle of 100-year-old aceto balsamico. Crispy sweetbreads were enhanced by luscious caramelized onions and sweet-and-sour carrots in a gently spiced coriander reduction. And when it came time for the main course, the waiter showed off a massive roast c0te de boeuf for two and proceeded to carve it tableside into thick, beautiful slices. The accompaniments--a potato-and-leek tart and sauteed wild mushrooms--made this course a feast. I think my favorite dish was the squab boulanger with its dark velvety meat and heady swirl of pan juices. A wedge of flourless chocolate cake, grainy with almonds, and a creme brulee flavored with lavender made a fine ending to a polished performance. It was a brilliant start.

For a formal French restaurant, Melisse isn’t stiff. More importantly, people seem to be enjoying themselves. But on returning several more times after the restaurant got busier--it was mobbed at the holidays--I could see problems beginning to emerge. Because the menu is ambitiously filled with dishes that are intricate and labor-intensive, Citrin needs a more seasoned staff to support him in the kitchen. When he isn’t able to cook every dish himself (though he’s often behind the stove seven nights a week), the cooking is often not as crisp. He needs to create a menu that his kitchen team can execute flawlessly. Without one, it’s nearly impossible to cook for 200 at the same level as for 50. It’s not that Citrin isn’t capable. It’s the restaurant that’s not capable at this point.

As it stands now, a meal can vary from the sublime to the merely ordinary. How can the same kitchen turn out squab boulanger or a sumptuous potato-and-leek soup poured over satiny leeks, oysters and a dab of caviar, and then send out a $40 plate of risotto blanketed with white truffles that shows little understanding of what a risotto should be?

First impressions are extremely important. And Citrin does a great job with those first bites.

Bread is a choice of fragrant crusty dinner rolls or slabs of deliriously buttery brioche. He always sends out a little taste, too--perhaps a demitasse of chilled cucumber soup garnished with crab and melon--before the appetizers. I enjoy his earthier starters, such as a green lentil salad embellished with wisps of mache and raw-cured duck prosciutto. But ravioli with dried tomato and goat cheese seems dated. And lobster, however beautifully cooked, heaped with bland pearl pasta in a Thai curry sauce, may be au courant, but it’s not particularly compelling.

Main courses are generally better than the starters. The c0te de boeuf, for example, is splendid. The double lamb chops are as tender and flavorful as they come (as they should be at $38), served in their natural juices with braised Swiss chard leaves with pine nuts and currants. Yet when I order the sauteed skate wing one night, the delicate taste and texture of the skate are buried beneath an onslaught of disparate flavors. Slow-cooked salmon is as soft as satin, its subtle nuances overwhelmed by overly sweet diced root vegetables. Yet Citrin has the imagination to complement a beautiful piece of black bass with spinach and preserved lemon, and it works wonderfully.

The wine list shows the budget constraints of a young restaurant. Despite that, every wine lover should appreciate that Citrin has invested in proper stemware--some restaurants with far more resources don’t bother. I appreciate, too, that Melisse offers a cheese cart. But this, like the menu, is overly ambitious. Instead of 20 cheeses, half of which aren’t nearly ripe enough, Citrin would be better off paring down to three or four choice selections.

Likewise the desserts don’t quite seem up to the level of the restaurant’s ambitions. That flourless chocolate cake is the best of the lot. Anyone who loves bananas and caramel should be happy with the giddy looking banana filo tower. But just as risotto with truffles should be perfect or not served at all, the tomato confit--a dessert borrowed from the repertoire of the remarkable 3-star Paris chef Alain Passard--bears little resemblance to the original.

However, no one cooks as well as Citrin by accident. If he can avoid missteps, raise the service to a consistently professional level and, most of all, get a kitchen staff behind him that’s able to execute his ideas, Los Angeles will have a wonderful new restaurant to celebrate. And I, for one, can’t wait.

*

AMBIENCE: French country decor with sponged ochre walls. SERVICE: Earnest, but not always on the mark. BEST DISHES: lobster salad, potato-leek soup, sauteed black bass, c0te de boeuf for two, Colorado rack of lamb, flourless chocolate almond cake. Dinner appetizers, $10 to $19; main courses, $25 to $35. Corkage, $20. wine PICKs: 1996 Vocoret Chablis “Montee de Tonnerre,” Burgundy; 1996 La Bastide Blanche Bandol “Longue Garde,” southern France. FACTS: Dinner daily. Lunch Wednesday through Friday. Valet parking.

*

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.