Fish Market: Between Rock and a Wetland

Ballona Fish Market ahoy, mates! A new seafood restaurant has just sailed into Marina del Rey Marketplace. Rock, a spinoff of the Santa Monica restaurant Rockenwagner, floundered there, but rather than give up the space, chef Hans Rockenwagner changed the name and the concept. Gone is the casual eclectic menu that mingled California tastes with French, Italian, German and Korean. In its place: Ballona Fish Market, named for the nearby Ballona Wetlands.

Rockenwagner, a skilled woodworker, took up his hammer and saw to give the place the look of a New England seaside resort. He clad the building in white clapboard siding and added a jaunty blue awning out front. Inside, he built a pair of diminutive seaside cottages that do double duty as private dining rooms. Photos of friends and family at the beach populate the walls. This time around, he seems to have tamed the noise level, too, which is a big plus. Ballona’s chef is Frank Springmann, who comes to town from Seattle’s Flying Fish restaurant. Although the setting is strictly suburban and the closest beach a five-minute drive away, that salt tang in the air is enough to make anybody hungry for fish.

For starters, there’s a fine hand-chopped ahi tuna tartare with pickled onions and baby arugula served with a dark crispbread. A thick soup of figs and pears scribbled with creme fraiche and lighted up with chile is harder to fathom. Spring rolls filled with salmon smoked on the premises get an oddball dipping sauce of white asparagus “jam.” And there’s a delightful tomato tarte tatin wearing a cloud of blue cheese mousse.

Although fish--opah with Mission fig compote; grilled albacore with spinach, pine nuts and raisins; grilled king salmon with lemon thyme sauce--is the star of the menu, Springmann can just as easily get into cooking buttermilk fried chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans or a fine pretzel burger--a burger served on a pretzel bun, which is something of a signature dish at Rockenwagner.

Occasionally, the kitchen gets carried away and tries to fit too many competing flavors into one dish. A beautiful piece of wild striped bass, for example, almost disappears under the onslaught of a sharp eggplant caviar, basil sauce and smashed Peruvian blue potatoes. Desserts could use some tweaking, and the wine list is a bit cautious.

Ballona is still a work in progress. That said, I can’t imagine Rockenwagner putting away his toolbox and his knife roll yet--not until he’s got Ballona Fish Market just the way he wants it.

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Ballona Fish Market, Villa Marina Marketplace, 13455 Maxella Ave., Marina del Rey; (310) 822-8979. Appetizers, $6.50 to $8.95; main courses, $9.95 to $19.95. Open for dinner daily; lunch to start in a month or so. Lot parking at Marina del Rey Marketplace.