Britta’s Gets Comfortable in Irvine

Britta’s, a Balboa Village fixture for 14 years, recently relocated to Irvine--for the most respectable of reasons: The old kitchen had only four burners. This is Newport Beach’s loss, but Irvine’s gain. The food served in the new place cleaves more or less to the same theme of seasonal menus, and the extra space has allowed the restaurant to stretch out a bit.

The new Britta’s is in the University Center, but once you’re through the door, the parking lot melts away and it’s easy to imagine that you’re dining in the country at a quaint roadside inn. The high ceiling is all exposed beams and corrugated tin, from which ceiling fans dangle. The floor and bar are mahogany, and the room is dressed up with quiet, rustic flourishes that whisper country comfort without making you feel you’ve entered the “Green Acres” dimension.

The food, like the atmosphere, is homey but not humble. You could categorize it as eclectic, but it’s not guilty of the spottiness that usually goes with eclecticism; the kitchen keeps everything admirably in focus. The compact menu roves from pasta to pot roast, circles back to warm goat cheese and flies home with duck confit, and it does all equally well.

Eclectic, to be sure. Still, the restaurant’s baseline is the best of fundamental American culinary values: James Beard’s “American Cookery” updated to reflect that we’ve fully internalized a lot of international influences.

The guiding hand here is owner Britta Pulliam, who keeps a watchful eye on the customers. I like her sense of taste. There’s nothing iconoclastic going on, and the flavors are delightfully uncluttered and nicely balanced.

The place serves wholesome breakfasts and lunches, big on multigrains, but let’s examine dinner. A nice appetizer is the pizzetta with wild mushrooms and Brie. The crust is crisp and the earthiness of oyster mushrooms runs a grounding cable into the sharp funkiness of the melted cheese. It’s further harmonized by a sprinkling of fresh basil. A similarly successful balancing act comes in the form of a roasted pear stuffed with goat cheese. On my first visit, the soup was a dense multi-bean affair with a stout base of tomato and chicken stock worthy of a minestrone.

I would, however, suggest rethinking the crab cakes. Despite their deep golden brown color, the breading is rather spongy, depriving us the contrasting textures that we expect from crab cakes. This is largely a matter of preference, but for my money the filling could use more, well, filler. It’s composed mainly of crab meat (quite good, albeit) with a few flecks of herbs, celery and red bell pepper. The flavors hit the right notes, but it’s a bit stringy.

The entrees walk a nice line between heartiness and delicacy; the food leaves you feeling comfortably full but not overstuffed, and the portions are generous but not ridiculous. The double-cut pork chop would provide enough fuel for a day of splitting firewood; more to the point, it’s the most tender pork chop I’ve come across in a while. The delicious mashed potatoes that accompany it are almost like pudding--they’re moistened with buttermilk--and the stuffing is rendered from good day-old bread and is full of hazelnuts and celery root.

There’s also a fine rendition of duck confit. This hindquarter of duck points up many of the virtues of a confit: The flesh is soft and pleasantly chewy, with just the right intensity of flavor, though the skin is not as crisp as it might be.

The side dishes, as usual here, show a good deal more thought than you generally find. For instance, I’m wary of risotto as a side dish because so often it’s an unappetizing mush by the time it reaches the plate, but scarcely anything could go better with that duck confit than creamy risotto tossed with thin strips of caramelized turnip. Completing the plate are three heads of braised Belgian endive, split in half and caramelized on the bottom. Fresh and faintly bitter, they provide a worthy counterpoint to everything else.

If you’re hankering for comfort food, try the winter vegetable and chicken pasta. It’s rigatoni cloaked in a voluptuous Gorgonzola cream sauce. With the high-pitched cheese and the baritone flavors of Brussels sprouts, arugula and wild mushrooms, once again we have a well-balanced dish.

The only dish I’ve had that fell flat was a special of beef tenderloin in red wine and currant sauce. The beef was tender and moist but needed salt and pepper--or something--and the sauce was somehow one-dimensional.

At dessert time, there are ice creams made on the premises, including excellent vanilla and espresso flavors. I’ve also had an excellent cranberry sorbet. And if you long ago wrote off devil’s food cake, Britta’s version will make you change your position. It’s moist, dense and packed with flavor, and it beats the devil out off all those tiresome flourless chocolate cakes we’ve been besieged with lately.

Britta’s is moderate to expensive. Appetizers $5.50 to $12.50. Salads $7.25 to $14. Entrees $10.50 to $29. Full bar.

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Britta’s, 4237 Campus Drive (University Center), Irvine. (949) 509-1211. Open 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.