House Seems at Home With Good American Cooking

Over the holidays, a new American restaurant called the house (yes, spelled lowercase) quietly opened on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Set in a restored Craftsman bungalow, it’s the project of Scooter Kanfer, who cooked most recently at Nic’s in Beverly Hills and Hollywood Hills Coffee Shop, and her front-of-the-house partner, Dana Caskey.

Kanfer is shopping the farmers markets for organic produce, and uses free-range meats and poultry whenever she can. Everything on her succinct menu sounds good. You can tell she’s been thinking about this restaurant for a while. Now she’s stepping up to the plate with her take on American cooking.

It’s homey food with a twist. The night’s special appetizer--house-smoked salmon with potatoes--is described as a gratin. When it comes, my French American friend shouts, “Brandade de morue!”--which is basically what it is, the salmon substituting for the salt cod to make a deliriously rich mix with mashed potato. Spoon bread comes in a different variation each night. Tonight, it comes in a miniature iron skillet and is laced with cheddar cheese. She makes a fabulous bowl of steamed mussels with shallots too, and a pretty salad of grilled endive, grapes, creamy goat cheese and walnuts in a pomegranate vinaigrette.

Kanfer takes prime rib of pork and stuffs it with apples and rye bread and finishes it off in a tasty cider sauce. I loved the pan-seared chicken with mashed potatoes and a terrific pan gravy. And the carnivores at our table were astonished that the “farmers market pot pie,” a medley of winter vegetables spilling from a hollowed-out squash, was actually vegan. On that blustery night, all of us wanted to polish off the tender lamb stew with fennel and half-inch-wide ribbon noodles.

For dessert, she’s got cookies in the shape of dragonflies or dragons with a shot of milk. She’s fond of her pastries, reminding us that no one ordered the peanut butter cup, and we should. Oh yes, we should, because this one takes it up a notch with better chocolate and better peanut butter. Mmm.

Now, Kanfer and Caskey don’t have the big budget of a Ben Ford, say, so the house, while charming, is a bit spare as yet. But good cooking and warm service with a personal touch mean this new American is off to a good start.

Note: Sunday night is three-course prix fixe menu for $30.

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the house restaurant, 5750 Melrose Ave., Hollywood; (323) 462-4687; (fax) (323) 462-4454; e-mail: house5750@aol.com. Appetizers $6 to $9; main courses $16 to $28. Open Tuesday through Sunday for dinner; lunch to follow soon.