Seasonal Menu, Touch of Chasen’s Make Jazzy Los Feliz Cool

Let’s face it. Jazz clubs have never been known, particularly, for their food. That’swhy the new restaurant and jazz club Los Feliz is such an anomaly. Imagine a sophisticated restaurant in front, the jazz club in back (with its own short, sweet menu). The look of the place is sleek and urban. The original Chasen’s booths have found a home here, as have rescued glass panels from the famous old watering hole.

It’s swell slipping into one of the curvaceous, roomy booths, now upholstered in beige. And the French-California menu, from chef Collin Crannell, who worked in Paris, at Patina and at Asia de Cuba in the Mondrian before taking the job as opening chef at Los Feliz, sounds terrific.

“If the menu tastes as well as it reads, that would really be something,” one of my dining companions comments, eyeing the seared scallops and the filet mignon hungrily. To start, the kitchen sends out a complimentary ameuse, a miniature crab cake embellished with a gorgeous thread of saffron oil. This, I think, could be the beginning of a beautiful meal.

I’m impressed with a graceful salad of tightly curled frisee, haricots verts and skinny asparagus strewn with toasted hazelnuts. And with a first course of slow-braised veal cheeks on a cushion of gently spiced red lentils. Seared foie gras with strawberries on French toast is a bold move and oddly intriguing, though I’m not quite sure it works.

What I like is that Crannell’s menu is so seasonal. It’s spring, after all, and out comes Alaskan halibut set down in a gorgeous, sweet English pea sauce. That filet mignon comes with tiny wild mushrooms and some seriously good crispy mashed potatoes. If you have a hankering for lamb, his tender loin encrusted in Moroccan spices with potato gnocchi, chick peas and olives is flat-out delicious.

If you’re smart, you’ll order the deconstructed ice cream sundae for dessert: three balls of vanilla bean ice cream with a buttery caramel sauce, fudge sauce, toasted almonds and whipped cream to embellish it.

The evening needn’t end there. Follow the sound of the music, which tugs at you from the bar, on into the club, where the cover charge varies. Los Feliz is off to a promising start.

BE THERE

Los Feliz, 2138 Hillhurst., Los Angeles, (323) 666-8666. Dinner appetizers, $8 to $16; main courses, $17 to $23. Open Tuesdays through Fridays for lunch; Tuesdays through Saturdays for dinner; Sundays for New Orleans-style brunch and a prix fixe Sunday supper. Valet parking.