FROM FARM TO FORK

FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT in restaurants as they are in love. Consider the amuse, that first little bite a chef sends out to tickle your taste buds. It says a great deal about what’s most important to that chef. Is it presentation? Bottom line? Whatever’s easiest--a tapenade, say? Or does it create a frisson of anticipation for what’s to come?

On a first visit to Chadwick, a new Beverly Hills restaurant, the amuse-gueule was a tender corn crepe the size of a silver dollar, dabbed with crab and garnished with a shaft of newborn corn. Its milky sweetness telegraphed the message that Chadwick’s two chefs, owner Ben Ford and co-chef Govind Armstrong, care deeply about the quality of ingredients. The crepe was such a graceful note, we immediately sensed we were in good hands and settled back to enjoy the experience.

That night, seared scallops with summer succotash made an impression. The scallops were fat and sweet, a wonderful complement to the succotash of farm-fresh corn, plump lima beans and a medley of other prime vegetables enhanced by the faintest touch of lemon and a little crisped pancetta.

As a first course, seppie, or Mediterranean cuttlefish, slices of purple Peruvian potatoes and a thatch of lemony, shredded baby artichoke create an edible garden on the plate. It’s an unusual and alluring salad, judiciously dressed in a chorizo vinaigrette. Even something as simple as a romaine salad is treated with respect. The tender inner leaves are lightly dressed and garnished with a lacy Parmesan crisp and obliquely cut toast smeared with anchovy butter.

On a fall evening a few months later, the amuse was a dab of duck liver mousse on a wafer of walnut pastry. Hardly anybody dares to serve something this rich anymore. A red-and-green oak leaf lettuce with grapes and Cabrales captures the season: It’s fresh and unaffected, punctuated with halved red grapes. In a richer vein, there’s a first course sweetbread cannelloni. The “pasta” is thin slices of potato wrapped around sauteed sweetbreads and wild mushrooms, forming two somewhat lumpy cylinders flanked by a perky herb salad. This dish wouldn’t win any beauty prizes, but the tastes work, and it is a good match with an older Chardonnay or a Pinot Noir.

The other great wine dish, an entree, is roasted squab paired with foie gras in a cipolline onion and cremini mushroom rag. The squab’s dark flavors are complex enough to stand up to a Syrah or an aged Pinot Noir. And with or without wine, the sublimely flavorful roast Colorado lamb, which offers three different cuts on one plate, along with a subtle parsley risotto, is a dish you can order again and again.

Ben Ford (son of actor Harrison) is so committed to fine produce that before opening Chadwick in August, he began growing herbs and vegetables at a San Fernando Valley farm. The restaurant, in fact, is named for organic gardening guru Alan Chadwick, who inspired and taught at UC Santa Cruz in the ‘70s, influencing, among others, Alice Waters and the burgeoning California cuisine movement.

Not that Ford is a vegetarian. No, this is one chef who loves his foie gras and pigeon as much as the next. I’d call him more of a vegetable devotee. Ford, who previously cooked at The Farm of Beverly Hills, may be a child of Hollywood, but as a cook he’s the real thing with all the right instincts.

He’s also had the luxury to create Chadwick just as he envisioned it. The 110-seat restaurant is set in a tiny brick cottage on Beverly Drive just north of Olympic Boulevard, where Chez Helene was once ensconced. Designer Thomas Beeton completely redid the interior in an updated Craftsman style. The dark wood paneling is a pale taupe. Orange silk sconces are edged in whipstitch. Tables are swathed in crisp white linens, and the chairs are dark wood with tall slatted backs. In fine weather, you can opt to sit in the inviting garden in front.

An intimate restaurant is hard to find in Los Angeles. Chadwick certainly fills that bill with its two small dining rooms and that cozy garden. Plus, everyone from the host to the bus persons is personable and engaging. That said, the one real weakness is the fish entrees, which tend to be too fussy and oversauced. Ford and Armstrong’s cooking are stronger with birds and meat. And on a Friday or Saturday night, when the kitchen is swamped, the food comes out slowly and doesn’t have the polish or balance it has on slower weekday nights. It’s a young kitchen: Ford, Armstrong and their crew are still getting their sea legs.

Pastry chef Angela Hunter is full of ideas and changes her dessert menu frequently. One week she may list an individual lemon angel cake wearing a headdress of miniature cat’s tongue cookies and a custardy frosting, or a new chocolate “box” filled with dark chocolate ganache and peanut butter, something like a peanut butter cup that’s gone to finishing school. She’s fond of tricky spun-sugar garnishes and has a refreshingly off-kilter sensibility, though occasionally she allows the look rather than the taste of a dessert to seduce. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of her sweet and savory menu for afternoon tea, which Chadwick now offers several days a week.

A young restaurant in more ways than one, Chadwick has an up-to-date

Web site, www.chadwickrestaurant.com, which explains the name and the concept, introduces the chefs and includes menus and photos. Check it out: It’s like having a brief phone conversation with someone before meeting them for lunch. Here’s hoping this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Chadwick

267 S. Beverly Drive,

Beverly Hills,

(310) 205-9424

cuisine: California

rating: **

AMBIENCE: Charming and intimate restaurant set in brick cottage imbued with Craftsman aesthetic. Garden dining in front. SERVICE: Engaging and professional, though the kitchen can sometimes be slow. BEST DISHES: Scallops with succotash, seppie with artichokes and potatoes, sweetbread cannelloni, Colorado lamb, squab with foie gras, lemon angel cake. Dinner appetizers, $9 to $16. Main courses, $23 to $31. Corkage, $12. WINE PICKS: 1999 Quartetto Semillon, Clare Valley, Australia; 1996 Bruno Clair Marsannay, Burgundy. FACTS: Lunch weekdays. Dinner Monday through Saturday. Tea Wednesday through Friday, by reservation only. 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.