Finally, a chef to match

The Cheesewright Building on Green Street in Pasadena fascinates architecture buffs. Built in 1929, the handsome red brick structure once housed a U.S. Navy office where Einstein worked on various projects.

Restaurateur Greg Lukasiewicz was intrigued by the mystery and lore of the building, and a few years ago leased it with the idea of turning it into a restaurant. He and his father own Restaurant Devon in Monrovia. Transforming the neglected labyrinthine space was daunting, however. Because he didn’t have a lavish budget, he enlisted friends and family to help him sand, scrub and paint. The work took months and, as with most renovations, costs soared. At the end, hiring a top-notch chef no longer was an option.

When Halie first opened, Lukasiewicz tried to compromise with a couple of new graduates from the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena. Though it was fun to see what he had done with the building, dining at Halie sometimes felt as if you had walked in on an improvisation piece about a restaurant performed by amateurs. The food seemed at best a prop. The service was nervous and pretentious.

The good news is that after a number of different cooks, all very young or inexperienced, Lukasiewicz finally has hired a capable professional chef. Claud Beltran worked under Thomas Keller at the Checkers Hotel in Los Angeles, cooked at Dickenson West (now Derek’s) in Pasadena and had his own place, Cayo, next to the Pasadena Playhouse for a couple of years.

Now that this restaurant in search of a chef and this chef in need of a restaurant have connected, Restaurant Halie seems to be finding its groove. The nearly 2-year-old restaurant has become more than just someplace for a drink; it’s finally gaining a following for its food.

Four nights a week, Halie hosts a separate wine bar in another part of the building with its own small menu of bistro dishes on Friday and Saturday nights. And on weekends, if you linger late, you may find the bar doing double duty as a disco.

With its high ceilings and deco velvet banquettes, the bar feels like the waiting room in a once-grand train station. Sleek and minimalist, it attracts an eclectic crowd. If you come for lunch or dinner, the host will lead you through the bar, past an improvised wine cellar to the L-shaped main dining room. The deep red walls and ornate mirror give it the look of a Russian boite, but the food is pure California with a French accent.

Beltran has kept his menu small enough that he can change it frequently, which is always a plus. True Californians love salads, and the chef indulges them with a delightful one of feathery frisee and prosciutto fried like bacon in a Dijon mustard-spiked dressing with queso fresco crumbled over the top. It’s a lovely variation on frisee with bacon. Another of wilted winter greens strewn with crunchy, pink, pickled shallots in a lyrical hazelnut vinaigrette suits the season perfectly. Another good choice is the salad of yellow beets and cantaloupe cut the size of fat French fries and stacked like logs with Boucheron goat cheese in a citrus dressing perfumed with cardamom oil. The flavors work wonderfully together.

A way with soups

The chef has a nice way with soups too. A smooth orangey soup looks as if it’s going to be pumpkin or carrots, but it’s not. Its taste is oddly intriguing -- a puree of smoked salmon with a dollop of creme fraiche and chives in the center. It’s like liquid lox. Good, but it’s a bit of a chore to eat an entire bowl of it. Another night, though, Beltran is serving an elegant tortilla soup. A wide shallow bowl arrives with a neat pile of diced avocado, tomatoes, fresh Mexican cheese and thin strips of crisp tortillas in the center. The waiter then pours over some rich clear chicken stock, and the scent of cilantro wafts from the bowl. Every bite is delicious and different. Now this is exciting.

Lately, foie gras is becoming as ubiquitous on menus as ahi tuna. Here, La Bella Farm foie gras is expertly seared and presented on a slice of pale green Korean melon with a few dots of tangerine reduction sauce that throws the sweet fat of the foie gras into relief.

On an unexpectedly busy weekday night, our waiter comes back to tell us they’re already out of shrimp for the Ensenada shrimp cocktail. And they’ve just sold the last order of duck too. Although we’re disappointed, this is not a bad thing. It means the kitchen doesn’t overbuy, and everything they do have is probably fresh.

In general, though, main courses are less exciting than first courses. Herb-roasted chicken won’t thrill a good home cook, but it makes a fine supper with its accompaniments of sauteed rapini and red bliss potatoes. Roasted lamb loin lacks any definitive flavor that could identify it as lamb; it could just as easily be beef. The pan roasted Muscovy duck is worth ordering, presented with sauteed baby turnips and a rich, dark sauce made from black grapes. Though grilled pork tenderloin is nicely cooked, it’s more about the plating than flavor, with charred Japanese eggplant and crispy soba noodles in a distinctive citrus vinaigrette fired with red curry.

The chef is better with fish than meat, at least on the current menu. I enjoyed the pretty pink arctic char set on delicious grated parsnip cakes that play their starchy sweetness against the subtle flavor of the char and the fragrant bite of a dark opal basil sauce. Beautiful big scallops are seared just to the point of caramelizing on the outside, while still somewhat rare in the center. A bright-tasting roasted red pepper ragout and caper vinaigrette give them a Mediterranean spin. New Zealand blue nose bass is making its debut on menus all over town, but it’s hard to fathom why. Its taste is as innocuous as Chilean sea bass, though here a sweet-hot vegetarian curry sauce helps mask its blandness.

Good wine in good glasses

Lukasiewicz has invested in good glassware, which makes drinking wine a pleasure. Although the list offers a handful of affordable California wines, much of it is devoted to California Cabs, American Pinots and older vintages of Bordeaux. Though they’re wildly overpriced, the restaurant does, at least, have them.

Serious wine drinkers might want to consider one of the well-chosen plates of imported cheeses from respected Nicole’s Gourmet Imports in South Pasadena.

For dessert, scoops of intense Valrhona chocolate and vanilla bean ice cream from Ciao Bella will satisfy anybody’s ice cream cravings. And for chocolate fanatics, there’s sometimes a round dome of fudgy chocolate cake napped in dark chocolate that looks like a Hostess Sno Ball without the snow. A cranberry compote that’s both tart and sweet -- and warm -- is pure comfort. A roasted pineapple tart is interesting too. A tray of mignardises, the little sweets French restaurants offer after the dessert course, though, isn’t that tempting. It might be better to perfect the regular desserts before getting into all the bells and whistles of a formal meal.

Though Restaurant Halie got into trouble by trying to do more than its original kitchen staff was capable of, with Beltran behind the stoves, it is making a turnaround.

What a difference a chef makes.

*

Restaurant Halie

Rating: **

Location: 1030 E. Green St., Pasadena; (626) 440-7067

www.restaurant halie.com

Ambience: A 1929 building renovated to include a sleek bar and a main dining room with red walls and a handful of comfortable booths.

Service: Nervous and a bit pretentious, but very attentive.

Price: Appetizers, $6 to $18; main courses, $19 to $29; desserts, $7.

Best dishes: Tortilla soup, cantaloupe and yellow beet salad, seared scallops in roasted red pepper ragout, foie gras with Korean melon, arctic char on parsnip cakes, grilled marinated duck breast.

Wine list: Some affordable California wines, plus a number of California Cabs, American Pinots and Bordeaux at seriously steep prices. Corkage: first bottle, free; second bottle, $10.

Best table: One of the booths along the wall.

Details: Open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday, 6 to 10 p.m., and for lunch Thursday and Friday, 11:30 a.m to 2:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.