True to Itself

At his first fancy restaurant meal, my little nephew ordered chicken. As the waiter slid the plate in front of the 6-year-old, he burst into tears. It wasn’t what he expected. It had sauce. When he finally stopped sobbing, he announced to my sister, “You can always count on the Sizzler.”

Isn’t that the appeal of chain restaurants? Everything is predictable. You know what’s on the menu. You can calculate down to the penny how much the bill will be. No surprises.

That must be what regulars are after at Maple Drive. Come last year, come tomorrow, you’ll find the same fine “kick-ass chili” and definitive meatloaf that owner and chef Leonard Schwartz brought with him when he left the late, lamented 72 Market St. to open this now-classic Beverly Hills restaurant. The menu has changed just a bit in recent months to reflect the steakhouse trend. It now includes a short section called “Prime,” which lists steaks and chops served a la carte, with a choice of sauces and sides. Other than that, the kitchen sails on, turning out the contemporary American fare that seemed fresh and new when the restaurant opened in 1989.

At the time, Maple Drive was part of a wave of design-conscious restaurants that swept into its orbit even those Angelenos who never cared much about food. Over the years, Maple Drive’s design has worn better than most. Not as hard-edged as the old City, say, the space has a languorous big-city loft aesthetic. Concrete walls tilt this way and that. The bar is sleek and delightfully roomy, with tables along a banquette and liquor bottles forming a cityscape along the top of the wall that divides the bar from the dining room. Quirky-shaped booths in blond hardwood veneer fit into odd corners of the room, and along the back are VIP booths that have such tall backs they feel like rooms.

On a slow night recently, I got to sit in one of these coveted booths. The opening is bracketed in wood, too, enclosing you in your own private world. The view is circumspect--waiters flitting by in their black vests and long aprons, the occasional guest crossing the room, the play of light from the windows on a long summer’s night. I also can hear the clanging of pots, the normal work sounds from a restaurant kitchen, the murmur of Spanish, or snatches of conversation from a table hidden in the corner. It’s oddly comforting.

Service is exceptionally good. The teamwork is seamless. A waiter hovers as the host hands you the menus, ferrying a crusty roll hot from the oven onto your bread plate just as you unfurl your napkin. Who can resist warm bread and sweet butter? To everyone’s relief, waiters don’t push the bottled water. When they ask if you’d like bottled or ordinary water, the question doesn’t seem weighted to cause any embarrassment if you choose the latter. Either way, take a sip, and someone almost immediately refills the glass. When you order wine, the good glasses are brought without anyone having to ask. Some of the waiters and runners have been with Maple Drive for years.

No doubt many of the customers have been coming here for the same amount of time. The quiet block set squarely in a mostly residential area is home to a music company and financial management companies. That’s the lunch crowd. At night, it’s a mix of Beverly Hill residents who appreciate the quiet, the crisp service and widely spaced tables. Those qualities may be the draw even more than the food. Maple Drive’s menu doesn’t try for culinary excitement or innovation, at least not anymore. But the cooking is reliable and well executed.

Fine-textured crab cakes are full of crab meat, with a sneaky note of heat. You might be better off, though, opting for the less expensive gold caviar over the sevruga. As a garnish, sevruga is too complex and metallic tasting to make a perfect foil for the crab cakes.

Schwartz has taken the tired idea of chopped salad and made it his own: His is a graceful mix of chopped sweet shrimp, prosciutto, Maui onion and cannellini beans with radicchio in a sprightly vinaigrette. The portion, thankfully, is truly appetizer-sized. That house chili is worth a taste, too. All meat, with only a few beans, it’s etched with the sharp, dry flavors of Schwartz’s custom blend of chili powder, and served with all the fixings and a dense, sweet corn muffin. You can get a cup at the bar, too, which makes a light summer supper with a beer.

Shrimp spring rolls have an integrity you don’t often find in non-Asian restaurants. The wrapping is crisp and not a bit greasy, the stuffing a pleasant mix of chopped shrimp, vegetables and rice noodle. It’s a bit bland, true, but easily remedied with a dip in the sweet, salty sauce.

The seafood entrees are well-prepared. King salmon, for example, comes with a tart sorrel sauce and a little asparagus risotto, while grilled black cod, a wonderfully flavorful fish, comes with artichokes and capers. Halibut, a special one night, is delicious with a lemon-caper beurre blanc. A cliche in the ‘80s, when it was made endlessly with Champagne, the classic sauce is now rare enough to be listed on the endangered list.

Some of the main courses, though, can be boring, unless you’re excited by grilled turkey sausages or plain grilled chicken scented with oregano in a tomatillo salsa. Chicken in a pot with a single matzo ball won’t remind anybody of mother, and she’d blanch at the price: $22.

The surprise is the veal Milanese. Pounded on the bone, dipped in egg and then bread crumbs, it rides right on the edge of crunchy, yet it’s juicy, without slipping over into dry. Schwartz perks up the color with a cascade of checca. For those who’ve forgotten, that’s chopped red tomatoes with basil and olive oil, the sauce of choice for angel hair pasta back in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The Maple Drive meatloaf still holds its own. Made of beef and pork, it’s fine-textured and meaty, standing tall and flanked by bookends of mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach.

The new “Prime” section of the menu corrals not only the usual filet mignon, New York cut and bone-in rib-eye, but also a double-cut pork chop and a juicy center-cut veal chop.

One night there’s a special: the same prime pork chop in Calvados sauce with velvety caramelized apples and a dreamy celery root and potato puree. It’s a wonderful plate of food, but a bit odd to serve in the middle of summer. Nobody ever called Schwartz’s food light. The other special that appeared every visit over three weeks was zinfandel-braised short ribs served with rapini and spaetzle, those squiggly noodles from Alsace and Austria. It left me wondering if the specials at Maple Drive ever changed.

I had some minor quibbles, too. On a Saturday of a holiday weekend, salads were limp and drowned in dressing, as if they’d been sitting around marinating all afternoon. The smoked tomato ketchup tastes as if half a bottle of Liquid Smoke was tipped into the pot.

The wine list has been updated with more moderate, food-friendly wines, many of which are available by the glass. On Tuesday nights, the restaurant discounts 30 wines by 50% as an incentive to get people to try them.

Pastry chef Lisa Gardner-Hruby has been with Schwartz since the beginning. How many rice puddings, how many hot apple tarts has she made in that time? I couldn’t begin to guess. I do know if profiteroles are available, the pastry is fresh and light, the coconut ice cream as smooth as gelato and the chocolate sauce dark and clingy. The other dessert that begs to be ordered is her chocolate cake in a wild coconut frosting, which looks like an Afghan coat from the ‘60s.

Even the music stays the same here, beautifully understated jazz and standards from the live duo of Phil Wright on piano and Louie Spears on bass. In a world today of so much uncertainty, I think there’s a comfort and dignity in repetition. Maple Drive has got that right. While I may wish the talented Schwartz would step out and do something different once in a while, he’s giving his longtime customers what they seem to want: continuity.

*

Maple Drive

345 N. Maple Drive

Beverly Hills

(310) 274-9800

CUISINE: Contemporary American

RATING: * 1/2 AMBIENCE: Dramatic contemporary space with spacious bar, small outdoor patio, sleek booths and open kitchen. SERVICE: Crisp and professional. BEST DISHES: Chopped salad, crab cakes with caviar, “kick-ass chili,” meatloaf, double-cut pork chop in Calvados sauce, zinfandel-braised ribs, veal Milanese, profiteroles and chocolate and coconut cake. Dinner appetizers, $8 to $28. Main courses, $17 to $44. Corkage, $15. WINE PICKS: 2000 Hirtzberger Gruner Veltliner Federspiel “Rotes Tor,” Wachau, Austria; 1997 Fontodi Chianti Classico, Tuscany. FACTS: Dinner Monday through Saturday. Lunch weekdays. Street parking, and valet parking on weekends.