The setting’s smart, and so is the wine list

GETTING to the food at Opaline, a new Los Angeles bistro, can take awhile. Not because of any lapses in the service. It’s the wine list. As soon as anybody with the slightest interest in wine opens the 10-page listing, they’re gone. Lost. Missing in action.

It happens every time. Neophytes parse the first page, then stop, riveted, and let a soft sigh escape. The menu just sits there while they lean back, absorbed in reading, looking up only to pronounce the wine list the most intelligently organized they have ever seen.

On Opaline’s list, wines are divided into groups according to their texture and weight -- light, medium, heavy -- and by the same criterion within each group. Many are annotated with comments ranging from “don’t hate me for being pink ...” to “by dolcetto standards, this is dark, deep and handsome.” All of sudden, that Cannonau from Sardinia or a Gruner Veltliner from Austria sounds fascinating enough to try.

Managing partner David Rosoff really knows his stuff. For five years he was general manager at Michael’s in Santa Monica, and although his list at Opaline isn’t as grand as Michael’s, its choices are more adventurous. He’s edited out the usual suspects, the big-ticket wines everyone recognizes, in favor of offbeat wines and cutting-edge producers.

Rosoff’s betting that if the list stays away from overexposed names, he’ll be able to nudge people into trying something new and unusual. What a refreshing concept, especially so, given that Opaline doesn’t gouge on prices. Most bottles are in the $30-to-$45 range; a handful are under $25. Plus, he’s offering a changing selection of 15 wines by the glass or the half-liter carafe (the equivalent of two-thirds of a bottle).

It seems to be working. Wine bottles jostle for space on almost every table in the sleek dining room. A curved wall pierced with bare picture windows wraps around the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Vista Street. Rustic dark wood tables are left undressed, too, set with woven placemats in a palette of grays.

In the center of the dining room, a doughnut-shaped banquette frames a flaring column of light, creating tables for two (or one) that offer some privacy. Larger groups crowd into the handful of upholstered Pullman booths while the unreserved or late squeeze into the “den” for a drink or a couple of small bites. Opaline neatly fills the space that was once the restaurant red and its former bar, red-eye, next door.

Now it’s green, for absinthe, the notorious liqueur abused by Van Gogh and a host of 19th century writers and artists. It was Oscar Wilde who dubbed the drink “opaline” for the way it clouds into an opalescent milkiness when poured over ice. The dining room chairs are painted acid green, the slatted wood ceiling stained a mossy hue, and menus are sheathed in green leather. At night, though, the colors seep away and the focus is on the streetscape outside the windows -- and what’s on the table.

Chef and partner David Lentz, who previously was executive chef at China Grill in Las Vegas and consulted on the menu for Firefly in Studio City, has put together a contemporary bistro menu shot through with the flavors of the Mediterranean. After his stints in a corporate cooking environment, Lentz revels in cutting his creativity loose. Unfortunately, not all of the ideas are good, and the ones that are suffer from poor execution. The kitchen seems more interested in culinary gymnastics than turning out food everyone would relish eating.

The oysters -- chilled, marvelously nuanced Fanny Bays, Skookums and Hama Hamas -- are an oyster lover’s dream, but why pair them with a grapefruit remoulade with a texture like an oily Thousand Island dressing? A butternut squash and fennel puree with lovely, delicate flavors is thick as gruel. A grilled radicchio salad strewn with bouquets of mache and toasted pumpkin seeds would be delicious if it weren’t so overdressed: The mache is flattened like flowers caught in a downpour.

Mediterranean beauty

Scallop ceviche is a bright note. Fired with hot pepper and drenched in tangerine juice, the tiny bay scallops pushed together into a rectangle read as an abstract painting. Grilled squab breast is cut thick, each rosy slab slashed with a stripe of black-green cavolo nero, and comes with a delicious parsnip puree. In five meals, a special grilled duck breast is the best main course I try. The rich, gamy duck is set off beautifully by blood oranges and a tart-sweet blood orange gastrique.

Many dishes, though, read better than they play. A salad of pale endive and chestnut is done in by an intensely sweet chestnut honey dressing that works against any wine in the place. Squid arrives as fat, thumb-sized blimps, propellers and all, stuffed with Mexican chorizo with the occasional bit of gristle. And an earthy wild mushroom ragu deserves better than gnocchi that could have been squeezed from a toothpaste tube.

A few dishes are far off the mark. I didn’t know what to make of “Chicken pot pie (a la coq au vin).” Under a flaky crust, shredded organic chicken is mixed with root vegetables and virtually no juice or remnant of red wine. The cassoulet featured one Monday night is a mystery, too: an unappealing sludge of stringy lamb and dried-out beans. And it’s hard to fathom what Lentz is going for with a burrata tart -- flat brown sheaves of pastry leaves with a dollop of burrata cheese and some caramelized fennel on top.

Things begin to look up with the cheese course, a well-edited selection of farmhouse cheeses and eclectic wines to go with them. It’s a chance to make real discoveries, and a welcome addition to the dining experience at Opaline.

Midday sparkle

At lunch, if you don’t want to really drink, a glass of French apple cider with only 4% alcohol is the ideal solution. Dry and complex, one from Eric Bordelet tastes like the memory of apples and goes beautifully with food. Though Opaline’s lunch menu replays some dinner dishes, it also adds an enticing appetizer of oil-slicked olives and creamy burrata ready to spread on grilled country bread. There’s also an excellent pressed pork sandwich, a warm, crunchy roll smeared with a little harissa (North African hot sauce) and filled with cumin-scented braised pork shoulder and Manchego cheese. But the bizarre idea of dribbling jam on a salad of Jidori chicken, shaved fennel and blood oranges is something of a palate bender.

The desserts, from pastry chef Roxanna Quiros, are a highlight, including the pert Meyer lemon tart with a polenta crust and lemon tequila sauce. The surprises are her pineapple crisp paired with cinnamon ice cream and a suave warm bread pudding laced with puckery kumquats and served with a crock of tangerine syrup. And I love her tall little butter cake suffused with the taste of hazelnuts and a pinch of fleur de sel.

But the ultimate sweet is her chocolate tower, a tier of three small plates each stocked with demure candies and petits fours. It takes an amazing feat of memory for the waiter to remember each of the components. Suffice it to say the selection includes exquisite dark molded chocolates with orange or bay leaf inside, a magical white nougat laced with almonds and honey and a heart-shaped ginger marshmallow. And for those who want to continue their tasting odyssey, Rosoff has some fascinating sweet wines up his sleeve.

Opaline comes on strong with a smart setting, an accessible and affordable wine list, a professional wait staff and the option to nibble and drink in the more casual “den.” If only the food didn’t lag a step behind.

*

Opaline

Rating: *

Location: 7450 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; (323) 857-6725.

Ambience: A lively contemporary bistro with a young urban L.A. crowd and a Mediterranean-

accented menu.

Service: Friendly and competent; particularly good wine service.

Price: Dinner appetizers, $7 to $12; main courses, $16 to $23; desserts, $7. Lunch appetizers, $6 to $10; entrees, $8 to $16.

Best dishes: Oysters on the half shell, burrata antipasto, bay scallop ceviche, pressed pork sandwich, grilled duck breast with blood orange gastrique, cheese course, kumquat bread pudding, Meyer lemon and polenta tartlet, hazelnut butter cake.

Wine list: Intelligently organized, with notes that encourage trying something new. Corkage, $12.

Best table: The roomy L-shaped banquette at the back of the restaurant.

Special features: A “den” menu of small plates ($4 to $8) served in the adjoining lounge; the “Green Hour,” Opaline’s version of the happy hour, 5:30 to 7 nightly.

Details: Open for dinner Monday through Saturday, 5:30 to 11:30 p.m.; lunch Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

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.