A globe-trotting chef lands in Santa Monica

When I called to invite my friend Kim for dinner at Cinch, a slinky new restaurant and lounge in Santa Monica, she answered, “No way -- that was the scene of my horrible blind date!”

Now I remember. She let him pick the restaurant, the better to learn something about him. I’m not so sure about that theory. Maybe the poor guy had heard Cinch was the latest Westside hot spot and wanted to seem tres courant. He probably hadn’t been there before and had no idea what he was in for.

Well, she hated it. The place was everything this well-traveled food lover loathes about L.A. restaurants: big and brash, with babes at the door, hordes of hipsters at the bar and beaucoup d’attitude. Instead of making the scene, she would have preferred to rendezvous somewhere more intimate. And certainly quieter. It’s rough going shouting at someone you barely know. And so it went. Nowhere.

It’s unfortunate she didn’t have a better experience at Cinch. Because despite the trendy trimmings, which include a typically hard-edged decor from designer Dodd Mitchell, there’s more going on with the food than the slick setting at this 4-month-old restaurant would suggest. And though the kitchen faltered at the beginning, the food has gotten better with each visit. I don’t like the noise any more than Kim did, but some of the cooking is interesting, though I have a suspicion the chef is pulling his punches, unsure as yet what will go over in Santa Monica.

A different palette of flavors

Chef Chris Behre is Australian, from Sydney’s lively food scene, a disciple of Tetsuya Wakuda, one of Australia’s best-known chefs. Behre has also spent some time in Shanghai as executive chef at a hotel there, and he opened Mju, a contemporary restaurant in London. He actually came to L.A. to open another branch of Mju, but when that project was delayed, he found this large new canvas.

Behre brings a slightly different palette of flavors to the table that mark his cooking as something new for L.A. He’s good on fish. Relatively uncommon ingredients such as hijiki (seaweed) jus and lobster oil and smoked paprika are threaded through his dishes. His cooking is contemporary, urban, syncopated. It’s what they’re eating in Sydney -- modern Australian cuisine with French and Mediterranean and Asian influences.

This is especially apparent in the first courses. The amuse might be a sliver of raw tuna with threads of pickled cucumber and a miniature orange segment. Bread comes with a delicious olive spread gritty with nuts, something like a romesco sauce, but not quite. It’s out of season, but somewhere he got sweet corn and made a lovely pale yellow soup embellished with a single shrimp and swirl of rich orange lobster oil. Plump white crab cakes are baked, not fried, a perfect dancing partner for a fragrant sweet corn and basil pesto. He’s found the farmers market, and teases organic lettuces into pretty salads. One has an unusual cocoa balsamic dressing, another a basil and mint vinaigrette.

But the appetizer that most caught my fancy is his seared scallops set down on roasted Jerusalem artichokes, a vegetable just waiting for a chance to show what it can do. The taste is somewhat nutty, which Behre points out by adding some hazelnuts to the dish. This is an oddball combination that really works.

At Cinch, there’s also the option of ordering from the small sushi section of the menu. The sushi chef is Tamaji Hata, who was at Citrine before they did away with the sushi menu there. Spicy tuna roll is turned inside out, with rice on the outside and a nice clean blast of heat. The Cinch tempura roll is pleasant enough, a cornucopia of raw fish, avocado and shiso that’s battered, fried and sliced, with a ponzu dipping sauce. And vegetarians should appreciate the fresh-tasting roll of avocado, cukes, bean curd and sprouts.

Mitchell designed the Sushi Roku restaurants in which rocks figure as a major design element. So it’s deja vu sitting at Cinch munching on a sushi roll next to a wall of blond rocks held in place by what you could only call a wire hair net. The decor is hard to fathom. He’s blown up the suburban fireplace screen to giant proportions and uses it as a curtain between the bar and the dining room. Part of the room is sunken and the ceiling there features round wells or holes lined with mosaic. The effect is like sitting in an aquarium. Down there, across the room, a woman holds a martini glass in her teeth and tips the contents into her consort’s mouth to wild shrieks of laughter. It’s spring break on Wilshire Boulevard. We watch a couple at a nearby table fight, for what seems like hours, until she walks out in a huff. Is this entertainment or what?

The first time I try the soba noodles, I love the flavors but wish the noodles weren’t so gummy. There’s something about pasta of any ilk served in a huge bowl that’s less than appetizing. Who could eat this by themselves? It comes in two versions, twice-cooked pork and chicken, both good, both with shimeji mushrooms and mustard greens.

I’d steer clear of the “potato envelope,” which is basically a potato calzone with thinly sliced potatoes taking the place of the pizza dough. Cut into it and it’s filled with goat cheese and caramelized whole shallots that look like prunes. It strikes me as another one of those dishes trying too hard to match the substance of meat.

Fresh from the farmers market

Behre, however, does accommodate vegans or vegetarians with variations on his prix fixe farmers market menu, which is served Monday through Wednesdays and is based on whatever he finds at the Santa Monica Farmers Market. At $55, it’s a pretty good deal; $20 more gets you wines to match it. The night I try it, I most enjoy the first course, a composition of four tastes on four rectangular white plates which is really a sampling of first courses. It includes both a tuna and a beef tataki (grilled on the surface, but virtually rare) that night, and a delicate salad of crab, melon and cucumber. The best dish was “ravioli” of tuna tartare with blood orange and avocado oil.

Australian chefs have a wealth of wonderful fish. The Pacific Coast catch is meager in comparison. Perhaps to compensate, Behre amps up the flavor quotient with inventive recipes, some more successful than others. Striped bass is lost in the pileup of chorizo, braised fennel and arugula drizzled with wakame seaweed and olive jus. Much better is seared wild salmon with Chinese greens in a pungent ginger and white miso sauce.

Meat dishes are just as mixed, running the gamut from a duck breast that tastes so little like duck it could be anything to pork stuffed with dates to luscious effect or big braised short ribs with a pronounced beefy flavor that come with a delicious carrot puree and Brussels sprouts you could even learn to love. The kitchen also does a mean grilled aged rib eye set off by a Roquefort bearnaise.

And service is almost too attentive. One night when a glass of wine toppled at our table, a team of servers insisted on changing the tablecloth so aggressively that they knocked the glasses off one of my guests in the course of unfurling the tablecloth. It was a Marx brothers routine, but without a trace of humor or grace. They’re excessively diligent with the water service, too, provided by guys in black Chinese pajamas with Cinch embroidered on their biceps.

Desserts from pastry chef Aaron Lindgren are a pleasant coda to a meal at Cinch. An orange creme brulee arrives with a lacy licorice root tuile. The obligatory warm chocolate cake is paired with a deep chocolate ice cream. And s’mores have been translated to a small round milk chocolate cheesecake topped with horns of vanilla bean marshmallow. The two best by far, though, are the warm brioche bread pudding laced with rum raisins and topped with banana caramel ice cream and a terrific Fuji apple pie crowned with vanilla bean ice cream.

The bad news is that to get to the food you have to brave the hipster tribe at Cinch. It simply won’t be worth it for many. For others, and you know who you are, the idea of scene plus food that’s not the same old same old will sound irresistible.

*

Cinch

Rating: **

Location: 1519 Wilshire Blvd. (at 16th), Santa Monica, (310) 395-4139; CinchRestaurant.com.

Ambience: Sprawling restaurant and lounge with active bar scene, hunk at the velvet rope checking names and French-Japanese fusion from chef Chris Behre. It’s party time for a young 30s set, and the noise level can be deafening.

Service: Variable, from pleasant to aggressive, depending on the waiter.

Price: Appetizers, $6.50 to $18; main courses, $12.50 to $27.50; desserts, $7 to $12.

Best dishes: Sushi items, tempura roll, tataki of Wagyu beef, sweet corn soup with shrimp and lobster oil, seared scallops with roasted Jerusalem artichokes, soba noodles with twice-cooked pork, roast pork stuffed with dates, grilled aged rib-eye, Fuji apple pie, s’mores.

Wine list: More than 100 selections from around the world, including 20 wines by the glass. Corkage, $15 for wines not on the list.

Best table: Along the rock wall, a few steps up from the main dining room.

Details: Open from 6 p.m. to midnight Sunday through Wednesday and from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. Thursdays through Saturday with dinner served until 10:30 p.m. and a late night bar menu after that. Full bar. Valet parking $3.50.

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.