One big garden party

IT’S been more than a year in the making, and I’m not talking about the latest Russell Crowe epic. Wilshire -- the restaurant -- was supposed to open late last year, but, like so many extreme makeovers, the transformation took longer than anybody involved could have predicted.

At long last, this New American restaurant, which had a website months before it had a working phone, has flung open the doors on the latest Thomas Schoos-designed extravaganza. Wilshire occupies the former Black Forest Inn at Wilshire and 25th in Santa Monica. But you’d never recognize the place now. It’s gone from dowdy to outright glamorous, with a bar and lounge in front and a cozy dining room with leather booths and mirrors.

The real attraction is the outdoor space in back, which the German restaurant used in summer as a beer garden. In terms of coveted L.A. restaurant amenities, this is priceless real estate: a huge, sprawling garden dotted with mature trees.

Give free rein to Schoos, the West Hollywood-based designer behind Koi, among others, and the garden turns into an alluring outdoor dining room. Flames spurt from fireplaces set here and there. Flotillas of votive candles sheathed in amber glass sputter in the darkness, working their voodoo. Canvas sails stretch from tree to tree. There’s a bar at the far end and tables set out under the trees.

Even on a slightly chilly night, hardly anyone wants to sit inside. The primo tables are the ones in the garden, populated with the usual blonds and their escorts, the cool and the trend-seeking.

The restaurant is taking no chances with this demanding crowd. Service is cranked up to the max, with enough waiters and runners for two, even three restaurants.

The menu from chef Christopher Blobaum, former executive chef at Surf and Sand Resort in Laguna Beach, is built around organic produce from the Santa Monica farmers market.

Appetizers include an unusual and intriguing calamari and watermelon salad garnished with the pickled watermelon rind. Lovely, intensely flavorful McGrath beets appear in a salad with toasted hazelnuts and a honey blossom vinaigrette. Blobaum has even got a poached egg that’s crisp on the outside, served with baby violet artichokes, butter beans and bacon.

Of course, Blobaum, like every other chef in town, feels he has to have tuna tartare and crab cakes on the menu. He weighs in with a credible yellowfin tartare layered with avocado and mango. His crab cakes are made with Maryland blue crab.

He’s got a little something for everyone in the main courses, from vegetarian pasta and risotto to seared fish and fat sweet diver scallops. There’s a fine organic pork chop with polenta and Fuji apples, a grass-fed sirloin steak grilled over wood and delicious spit-roasted leg of lamb served with farro and carrots. The hit with the boys at my table is the braised beef short ribs with a soft mound of fluffy mashed potatoes.

Too bad Wilshire has made its grand entrance right at the end of summer, because that outdoor space is magic.

Oh, right. That’s why they invented heat lamps.

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Wilshire

Where: 2454 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica

When: Open 6 to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 6 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5 to 9 p.m. Sundays. Bar menu available 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 5 to 10 p.m. Sundays. Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Appetizers, $8 to $14; main courses, $22 to $32; desserts, $7-$8

Info: (310) 586-1707

www.wilshirerestaurant.com