Making a virtue of simplicity

IT must be fate.

Every time I drop in to Canele (and drop in is the only way to go since the 3-month-old Atwater Village restaurant doesn’t take reservations), I end up sitting at the communal table in the front window. Twice it was because there was no other table available and my friends and I didn’t want to wait.

But now I tend to gravitate to one end of the broad farmhouse table set with vases filled with herbs. I like sitting down to dinner without feeling locked into a tiny two-top. Sometimes you see familiar faces. But mostly you don’t and that’s a big part of the appeal -- the sense of a shared experience with new acquaintances.

Someone will wonder what it is you’re eating or ask for a recommendation. Someone else will lean close conspiratorially and tell you to order the heirloom tomatoes with olives, cucumbers and feta. I do. And it is delicious and surprisingly generous for $9.

Because the communal table sitters tend to be a self-selected group, people are often more sociable and they linger. Over wine. Over coffee. Over the beguiling buena chica cheesecake.

From this comforting wooden table on the sidelines, you can take in the entire scene at Canele. Waiters rushing about, baker’s linens tied around their waists as aprons. Line cooks banging pots and pan-searing up a storm, and, in the middle of it all, chef and co-owner Corina Weibel, cool and collected.

From my seat, too, I can watch the neighborhood crowd into the workaday space that was once, before a paint job and a cleanup, the long-running Osteria Nonni. In fact, in tribute to Nonni, Weibel has kept its aglio olio on the menu for the stalwarts who lament the Italian spot’s passing.

Weibel has been working as a caterer for the last five years, but before that, she cooked at Campanile and then Lucques. (Could that be where she got the idea for the hard-to-pronounce, hard-to-remember name, which refers to a small fluted pastry from Bordeaux?) Her business partner is Jane Choi, who got her front (and back) of the house experience at the frenetic French bistro Balthazar in New York. It’s a good combination of skills.

But Canele is no Balthazar or Lucques. It’s modest in scope and ambition, more a great neighborhood restaurant than the kind of scene that gets mentioned in the trades or gossipy blogs. Good thing too. Because this is the kind of place where you don’t have to worry whether your outfit passes muster. It’s pretty much come as you are and kick back over a homey bowl of soup or a plate of roasted beets with fennel and goat cheese.

Given Weibel’s background, it’s no surprise that the menu displays a certain California-Mediterranean bent. And why not? It’s the cuisine that makes sense in Southern California. Her food isn’t based on what’s in fashion, but on what’s in season.

And though the cooking at Canele isn’t as polished as that at L.A.’s top Mediterranean spots, it is honest and it is very good. Weibel doesn’t necessarily have her sights set on the stars. She seems like she just wants to feed people well. And that, after all, should be a restaurant’s mission, but too often other things become more important. Not at Canele.

Clean and fresh

I love her farmers market salad of freckled lettuces dressed with creme fraiche and finely minced shallots. This is the way a simple green salad should taste, especially when the kitchen has access to such fresh produce. I like the way she uses celery root in a salad too. She doesn’t load up the julienned root with mayonnaise as in a celery remoulade but instead dresses it in a piquant sherry vinaigrette that allows the fresh grassiness of the celeriac to shine.

Here’s a cook who goes for the clean and fresh flavors almost every time, in dishes like this one or her bright-tasting salad of seared calamari drenched in lime.

Although this is a restaurant where you could eat often, at first there wasn’t much shift in the menu from week to week. As much as I enjoy the bright zap of that calamari, I don’t want to eat it every time. But on a recent visit, Weibel has not just one or two, but several excellent specials, which signals a change. The kitchen is more confident, ready to take on some new dishes.

This night, she is serving a wooden board of jamon serrano with a couple of Spanish cheeses and a lovely handmade quince paste that sets off the nutty quality of the cheeses. Oddly, though, the ham itself doesn’t have much flavor.

We can’t pass up the steamed littleneck clams, which you can order either as an appetizer or a main course. We order the larger size to share among three as an appetizer. The portion is generous and the clams absolutely delicious, with plenty of juices to soak up with an otherwise undistinguished baguette.

A new flageolet bean soup sounds wonderful on this (for us) bitter night. But it seems a little half-hearted, needing something to give it some oomph. You can’t argue with the main courses when only one of them breaks the $20 mark. Tops on my list of dishes I’d come back to eat is the pan-seared red snapper. This is an incredibly flavorful fish that doesn’t show up on local menus nearly enough. She cooks it really well, so that it’s still flaky and juicy, and pairs it with steamed rice and a handful of marvelously earthy shell beans.

Worthy of Grandma

TROUT arrives with the head and tail on, split open and seared to a dark, crisp gold, then gilded with butter and a scattering of capers. The braised leeks that come with it are wonderful: I could have eaten an entire plateful of the soft, pliant leeks, charred at the edges.

A roasted half-chicken makes a fine supper. So does the herb-roasted leg of lamb, cut in tender, rosy slices. Worthy of a French grandmother’s table, it’s been given a Provencal accent with a smear of dark, delicious tapenade. Boeuf bourguignon with buttered noodles sounds much more inviting than it is, though. Somehow the sauce doesn’t have that deep winey hit I expect when I order this classic dish. That’s easily fixed. More to the point, the menu is all real comfort food. And that, I think, is the idea behind Canele.

The wine list could be more inspired, even given that it’s a small list for a small place. Any plugged-in wine buff could easily put together something more interesting at the same modest price points. But you do have the option of bringing your own bottle for a $10 corkage fee, and the glassware is Riedel stemless, a nicely shaped bowl that sits flat on the table.

Oh, and there’s the matter of that buena chica cheesecake. It’s one of the better versions around because it’s not gussied up with a thing, just the bright cheese filling with a nice sour tang on a buttery crumb crust. The kitchen also produces a superlative flan, again in a classic style, with a fine silken texture, napped with irresistible burnt caramel. And built to share. Depending on the fruit of the season, there’s always a light, flaky biscuit or shortcake topped with various combinations of berries and other fruit.

Funny thing about the caneles. If you’re going to name your restaurant after an obscure Bordelaise pastry and convert others to the obsession, you’d think you’d have the making of said pastry down, well, cold. Just as you’re scooting out the door, you’re handed one of the tiny fluted pastries. Only it’s not a very good one. At a restaurant named for them, you’d think these babies would be memorable.

Yet, despite some minor glitches, Canele is the best of the class in the Atwater-Los Feliz-Silver Lake neighborhood. It’s not that easy to make simple food well, but Weibel and her crew are turning out wonderful, uncontrived dishes with an undeniably quirky charm.

virbila@latimes.com

*

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Canele

Rating: **

Location: 3219 Glendale Blvd., Atwater Village; (323) 666-7133.

Ambience: Appealing neighborhood restaurant with open kitchen and a communal table in the front window. The menu is scribbled on a tall blackboard. The spirit is informal and fun. A no-reservations policy sometimes means a short wait.

Service: Personable and efficient.

Price: Appetizers, $6 to $10; main courses, $9 to $22; desserts, $6.

Best dishes: Farmers market salad with creme fraiche and shallots, celery root salad, “coops” omelet, steamed littleneck clams, pan-seared snapper with rice and shell beans, herb-roasted leg of lamb, beef tenderloin with bordelaise sauce, buena chica cheesecake, flan, berries and biscuit with creme fraiche.

Wine list: Short and serviceable. Wineglasses are stemless Riedel; corkage fee, $10.

Best table: The communal one in the front window.

Special features: No reservations.

Details: 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Beer and wine. Street 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.