Austrian Cuisine, by Way of Woodland Hills

“Servus” is not a name that screams “Austrian restaurant” to most of us (the menu explains that it’s a colloquial greeting in Vienna). And Servus is just a trifle hard to see, rather overshadowed by a flashy Italian restaurant next door. But this charming place, located half a mile west of Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Woodland Hills, fills a serious Austrian restaurant gap in the Southland.

The walls are poster-paint red, adorned with prints of 19th century Vienna and various 19th century Viennese in dainty white frames. The glass-covered tablecloths are red too, and the pillows on the chairs are red with white polka dots. A dining patio (not, at least so far, in the red and white colors of the Austrian flag) is being developed in the back.

There’s always goulaschsuppe --essentially a small version of the goulasch entree: beef in an attractive paprika-heavy broth. It’s very good, though some of the chunks can be chewy. The tagesuppe (soup of the day) might be a grassy, strongly asparagus-flavored asparagus soup.

The Viennese-style potato salad is simply slices of yellow potato in vinaigrette dressing. In fact, all the salads come in vinaigrette, as you can discover by ordering gemischter salat , which includes potato, green, cucumber and both green bean and red bean salads.

Austrian food, as may have become clear, is much like German food that has been exposed to Hungarian and Mediterranean influences. Apart from the hearty goulasch , the entree list has a chicken paprikash ( paprikahuhn ) of a dietetically correct sort: chicken breast in a light but not very exciting paprika sauce. Both of these dishes come with the miniature dumplings called spaetzle, here neatly gathered into a timbale rather than lumped on to the plate.

Servus prides itself on its schnitzels, but they’re pork, rather than veal, and if you have your mouth set for a practically paper-thin veal cutlet, they’ll disappoint you, though they’re fairly tender for schnitzels that are about as thick as a CD carton. The delicate chicken ( huhner ) schnitzel, pounded nearly paper-thin and fried slightly crisp in thin breading, is much closer to the classic veal schnitzel and comes with particularly good French fries.

There’s a variation of the pork variety called zigeuner (Gypsy) schnitzel, topped with stewed onions and sweet peppers, which I think could use some lemon juice to point up the flavor. Cordon bleu, stuffed with ham and Swiss cheese, is moister and more flavorful than the rest of the pork schnitzels.

On the Germanic side of things, bauernschmaus is a farmer’s platter of roast pork, ham (dark red and strongly flavored) and a real frankfurter, garlicky and spurting juice, served with brown gravy, mellow sauerkraut (it has clearly been rinsed and stewed to tame its sharpness) and a bread dumpling the size of a small orange. The roast pork is also available on its own as schweinerostbraten . Wiener zwiebelrostbraten is a tasty mouthful: a big, thin slice of top sirloin topped with flour-dipped fried onions and a dainty amount of Dijon mustard sauce.

Surprisingly, there are a couple of meatless entrees. Kasnockerln has an unlikely sound--roasted spaetzle topped with Mozzarella--but with its chewy-soft texture and melted cheese, it’s the top comfort food of this menu.

The dessert list is short. There’s apple strudel, apparently made with pre-roasted apples to keep the pastry crisp, because it’s the driest strudel I’ve ever had.

The real crowd-pleaser is the palatschinken , which are crepes filled with apricot preserves and topped with cinnamon and whipped cream.

Servus proudly lists a couple of Austrian wines. The Gelber Muskateller (Muscat Canelli) from Manfred Tement, a prominent grower in the Styria region, is not as fragrant as it might be, but the slightly peppery Grner Veltliner and quite perfumed Riesling, both from the Freie Weingartner of Wachau, are excellent wines that show that these flowery Germanic-style grapes can be made into dry, full-bodied white table wines that go with food--even with bauernschmaus .

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Servus, 22456 Ventura Blvd., Woodland Hills. (818) 591-1900. Dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday; closed Sunday. Beer and wine. Parking lot. All major cards. Dinner for two, $40 to $67. What to Get: goulasch , gemischter salat , bauernschmaus , huhner schnitzel, cordon bleu, zwiebelrostbraten , kasnockerln , palatschinken .