It’s California casual at its best

Everybody would love to have a perfect neighborhood restaurant, somewhere to repair to after a day’s work without effort or fuss. Someplace where the staff knows you and remembers to save that corner table you like and that last order of spot prawns or plum tart. Somewhere you know the menu through and through and look forward to eating your favorite dishes, or trust the chef to carry off a new dish.

While you’ll happily reserve a table at the latest hot restaurant when friends come to town, you naturally want to show off your local spot as well. It’s pride of ownership, after all. But it’s also abject gratefulness that you don’t have to drive across town to get something good to eat.

In Brentwood, that restaurant is Zax, and it’s a model of the genre. Never mind that it used to be called Woodside. This address across from the Wadsworth Theatre is one of those felicitous spots where the good feelings carry over from one owner to the next.

When Chris Schaefer bought the place 2 1/2 years ago, he and his wife, Chantal, were smart enough not to interfere with a pattern already well-established: relaxed decor, light-hearted, new American cuisine made with impeccable products, and gracious service from a staff that tends to stay around.

Zax, which is named for the Schaefers’ son, Zacharie, is just one big room, really. To one side is an open kitchen under a gleaming brass hood. It’s framed by a handsome wood bar stacked with dinner plates, pitchers of water and a profusion of flowers. With its closely packed tables and banquette that runs the length of an exposed brick wall, Zax is comfortable and welcoming enough to make anyone feel like a regular by a second visit.

Under the former chef, Brooke Williamson, who has just opened Amuse Cafe in Venice, the menu had a high California gloss. The new chef, Gavin Portsmouth, was trained in England, and he brings an engaging sophistication and worldly accent, while keeping the same casual spirit. To cite a couple of examples, he slips a squirt of lime and a little mint and red hot pepper into his steamed black mussels and decorates them with slices of lotus root as lacy as snowflakes. The broth, swirled with creme fraiche, tastes familiar and exotic at the same time. Duck broth soup is loaded with shredded chicken confit and ribbons of soft nappa cabbage and radicchio. It is lightly perfumed with basil, and it holds a sneaky snort of jalapeno.

Salads are intelligent and delicious, whether it’s a lovely roasted fig and beet salad strewn with hazelnuts in a goat cheese vinaigrette, or one with emerald arugula and radicchio tossed with tiny red grape tomatoes and hand-torn croutons. The peppered pecorino shaved over the top is a welcome change from Parmigiano, and it’s pungent enough to stand up to the peppery arugula.

Very few L.A. restaurants make a decent risotto. But here, at least, is someone who understands what the dish should be. Instead of the stodgy, overcooked and overrich rice turned out by so many kitchens, this chef cooks with the season, which is summer, after all. His risotto of lemon and asparagus is light and refreshing. Enriched with mascarpone and a little Parmesan, it’s the equivalent of a summer-weight blanket as opposed to a goose-down comforter.

Portsmouth’s sweet pea ravioli is designed to show off the last of the season’s peas. It’s a very pretty dish -- the pasta packets showered with peas and napped in a simple sage brown butter with summer truffles shaved lightly over the top. Summer truffles never have much flavor or perfume, so he’s heightened their effect with a little truffle oil. I wish he hadn’t -- it’s a cheap thrill that has become a caricature.

Main courses fall squarely into the comfort zone, yet they’re never cliches. Every dish has some distinctive touch. Slow-roasted halibut is all the better for its sunny orange tomato sauce. Lake Superior whitefish is steamed the better to show off its delicacy. He livens the plate up with a delicious little salad of green beans and radishes, and a citrusy vinaigrette dotted with fresh peas.

Even the roast chicken comes off more interesting than most, served in its juices with white asparagus and a stack of thick-cut steak fries. We should all be so lucky to find supper like this close at hand.

Granted, none of this is too daring. It’s just good cooking, a rare enough event in this part of the woods. I appreciate the way Portsmouth tweaks an otherwise straightforward dry-aged prime New York steak with glassy tempura-fried onion rings and an unusual salad of tatsoi and luscious caramelized scallops. Grilled pork tenderloin is usually a yawner, no matter how carefully cooked, but his gains attention with a punchy whole-grain mustard sauce and an accompaniment of squiggly beer spaetzle and the contrasting touches of salty lardons and sweet, slow-roasted pear.

Schaefer has done his homework in putting together the wine list, which offers interesting selections that prove there’s life beyond Chardonnay and Merlot. In every category, there’s something you’d want to drink: an Engelgarten blend of Alsace varietals from the great Marcel Deiss, the Baumard Clos de Papillon Savennieres from the Loire Valley, Remelluri Rioja and Alban’s “Lorraine” Syrah or Kalin’s Sauvignon Blanc. Prices are generally quite good, even for wines by the glass.

A good vibe

Service is some of the best in town, always polite, always attentive. Some of the waiters worked here even before the restaurant got its new name and owners, and their teamwork and camaraderie are there for all to see.

In a town where everybody says they want to do lunch, and not that many places even offer it, Zax shines.

At lunch, the restaurant has a completely different vibe. Butcher paper covers the tables, and it has the bustle of a well-tuned bistro.

Drawn by the lustrous bargain of a three-course prix fixe menu for $15 and well-priced a la carte items, the crowd has a happy buzz. One day, I started with a farmers market salad -- pristine baby greens with pear-shaped cherry tomatoes, green beans, radishes, herbs and the occasional startling yellow carrot -- all beautifully underdressed.

The big seller at lunch is the huge ground rib-eye burger on a high domed bun with a dark glaze. The meat is an inspired choice, much moister and certainly richer in flavor than many upscale burgers. You have the choice of Fontina or blue cheese, but with caramelized onions piled on, cheese can take this burger well over the top. It comes with splendid gold fries crisped at the corners and a handmade mayonnaise laced with chopped scallions for dipping. A pressed prosciutto sandwich is on the rich side too, with feta, roasted red pepper and prosciutto all welded together on buttered bread.

Desserts are few but good, including a delightful lemon tart and a mixed berry napoleon lavished with gold and red raspberries. “Coffee & doughnuts,” however, is the real crowd pleaser -- a chilled coffee souffle served in a cappuccino cup with a side of warm doughnut holes rolled in sugar.

Zax has its neighborhood all sewed up with its California-casual cuisine, personable service and inviting scene. But who’s to say the rest of us can’t adopt the neighborhood for an evening?

*

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Zax

Rating: ** 1/2

Location: 11604 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood; (310) 571-3800.

Ambience: Comfortable bistro with exposed brick walls, handsome open kitchen behind a wood bar, and a neighborhood crowd. A lively lunch scene.

Service: Some of the best in town; professional and friendly from servers who tend to stay.

Price: Dinner appetizers, $7 to $11; main courses, $18 to $34; desserts, $7. Lunch appetizers, $6 to $7; main courses, $11 to $12; desserts, $7.

Best dishes: Steamed black mussels, spicy duck broth soup, roasted fig and beet salad, farmers market salad, lemon-asparagus risotto, sweet pea ravioli, olive-oil poached salmon, grilled pork tenderloin, steamed whitefish, coffee and doughnuts, mint chip ice cream sandwich.

Wine list: Intelligent, interesting list with something unexpected in every category, and a good number of wines by the glass. Corkage, $12.

Best table: The round table in the front bay window.

Details: Open for lunch Tuesday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; dinner Tuesday through Thursday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, to 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m. Valet parking, $4.

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.