At the edge, sometimes over it

A bite of sweet ivory-pink shrimp with a slice of dried chorizo and a dab of dusky olive paste -- it does exactly what it’s supposed to do, amuse. A gift from the chef, it’s like a bright flurry of trumpet notes announcing the beginning of the meal and the promise of good things to come.

At Sona, the 3-year-old La Cienega restaurant founded by chef David Myers and his wife, pastry chef Michelle Myers, that tantalizing promise doesn’t always hold through the entire meal. But when David Myers gets it right, he gets it very right. And when he miscalculates, it’s no small thing.

Sona has ambitions, big ambitions. That’s refreshing in a city where so many chefs play it safe, content to churn out the same dishes everybody else is doing over and over again, afraid to pique their customers’ interest with something challenging and, well, different. No problem here: Myers is ready and willing to do battle.

This is a restaurant you want to love, if only because the chef is aiming so high. Arriving in front of the stark white building, you can’t help but feel a frisson of excitement and sense of occasion. The textured glass windows don’t reveal a thing, but the burnished metal planters filled with stony succulents give a hint of what awaits inside. Truncated acid green mums in squat ceramic vases are the sole notes of color in the serene minimalist room. Everything -- the expanses of putty-colored walls, the servers in black who move through the room like acolytes, and a 6-ton granite wine altar at the center of the room -- conspires to create the Myerses’ temple to haute cuisine. Dining at Sona, in fact, seems designed to be more of a religious than a sensual experience.

There’s been one unsettling change at Sona, though: Michelle Myers is on extended leave, and her eye and her input, not to mention her desserts, are a distinct loss to the restaurant. On the other hand, although the restaurant used to be punishingly solemn, three years after opening, the place feels very much alive.

On a recent evening, the room is filled with sophisticated types you might see tucking into foie gras at Daniel in New York or Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, two of Myers’ mentors. At one large table, actors and crew take time out from a film in progress to celebrate. At another, three guys just in from Chicago have dinner with three gorgeous women who hang on their every word, fascinated, although they’ve clearly just met. At Sona, you’ll see everything from sleek evening dress to jeans worn with rhinestone belts and Rick Owens’ rock glam creations. At one point in the evening, Japanese hip-hoppers in wool watch caps and baggie pants troop past.

Sona is definitely happening.

OK, you want to say, bring it on.

That’s not always so easy -- Myers’ passion is to improvise according to his mood and what’s come into the kitchen that day, so every dish has to be announced. They’re often so elaborate in terms of the sheer number of ingredients that by the time the server has reeled off every one of them, you’re numb.

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Tasting menus or a la carte?

MYERS’ penchant for cooking on the edge is best expressed in Sona’s tasting menus, either the six-course decouverte or the nine course spontanee. Either is a commitment; for me, the six-course is just about right.

One night it starts off with a flourish: a delicate mussel tempura with tomburi (Japanese wheat seed) and Pernod. The minuscule seeds have a crunch and taste green and alive. I can almost hear a wheat field growing somewhere, the dish is that vivid. Alongside the mussel, on a wavy glass plate, is a satiny salmon confit with horseradish and chorizo.

I’m glad to see Myers has given up the twee porcelain plates so impossibly cramped you practically had to be trained in micro-surgery to extract a bite.

Chunks of Maine lobster so gently cooked they’re almost custardy are paired with butternut squash agnolotti in a kaffir lime emulsion. The sauce is rich and intense, but because it’s present in only minute quantities, it works with the pasta. Another standout is a peeky toe crab cake with hijiki seaweed puree and a few strands of toothsome udon in a marvelously nuanced seaweed broth. Myers has a definite affinity for Asia, and the Asian-inflected dishes are always among his best.

In every meal, there are two or three truly delicious dishes, but the kitchen can’t seem to sustain the momentum for an entire dinner. A dish of house-smoked eel with bluefin toro and papaya sauce falls flat. Corn soup with sea urchin and sweetbreads tastes unnaturally sweet.

And for all the effort and pretension, the plating can sometimes be brutally unattractive, with congealed sauces slashing the plate and the ingredients arranged to look excruciatingly artful. A duo of bison and venison is scary looking. The bison is a raw red and just a little gristly with a blackberry yuzu sauce thrown on the plate, a Rorschach test for the gourmand. There’s nothing appetizing about the way this dish looks or tastes.

Servers will always suggest one of the tasting menus, explaining that that is what the restaurant does best; they seem disappointed if you opt to order a la carte. In Sona’s earlier days, I would have had to agree. The tasting menu definitely showed off the best of Myers’ cooking, while the a la carte menu was curiously awkward, too heavy with dishes that didn’t come together. Now, though, it’s much more user friendly, offering a real option for anybody who just wants to have dinner and eat what they want to eat.

Celery root ravioli is wonderful, supple slices of celeriac across chunks of silky mushrooms that taste earthy and somehow meaty, as if they’ve been sauteed in duck fat. Prime beef tartare, hand-chopped and highly seasoned, is topped with matchsticks of nori seaweed and a quail egg. It’s wonderful, but how odd that it’s served not with toast, but with Japanese seaweed crackers and only a few, not nearly enough for all the beef.

Those first courses are quite good, but once the main courses come, things can begin to unravel. Duck breast is inexplicably dull; oddly, it hasn’t much flavor. Even a Meyer lemon compote can’t perk it up. In the duo of beef, the prime Nebraska steak is overcooked on one visit, but the short ribs paired with it are excellent. So are the accompaniments, especially the cheese-laced potatoes. Best of the main courses is Scottish salmon cooked to a beautiful silky texture and served with black rice and a celery root puree that’s pure comfort.

But what’s with the plates for the main courses? They’re square slabs of dark gray slate and when you cut into your entree, it’s the sound of fingernails grating across the blackboard, sending shivers up and down your spine. Another example of form over function.

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Gone surfin’

DESSERTS offer more overkill in terms of fussiness and ingredients at war with each other. Witness a dark chocolate-yuzu cake with a penetrating citrus aftertaste. Michelle Myers’ absence from the kitchen is certainly making itself felt: Desserts used to be the highlight of a meal at Sona.

And on one visit, the pastry chef isn’t the only one missing in action. The entire meal seems so oddly off we’re suddenly inspired to wonder whether David Myers is even there. I ask one of my guests to casually inquire. Actually, no, he’s in Hawaii doing an event and he’s taken a couple of the chefs surfing. He should have just hung a sign out front, “Gone surfin’,” because nothing is up to par that night.

Except the service, which, per usual, is so attentive, it’s oppressive. Cranked up to the max, it unfortunately does everything except make guests comfortable. Shortly after we sit down, I think I’ve lost my napkin. I’m surreptitiously looking under the table when a smiling young woman arrives with four starched linen napkins. Obviously, I never had one in the first place. Now she ceremoniously places them on our laps herself.

The table is set with silverware only after you’ve ordered, which involves a waiter interrupting the conversation to murmur, “Please excuse my reach,” and fuss with things. Whenever a new course arrives, it involves more fussing to make room for the sometimes unwieldy plates. Even more annoying, overzealous servers stop by every few minutes and try to remove my wineglass, which still has a couple of sips in it.

Aargh!

Sommelier Mark Mendoza is informed and passionate about wines, though -- he’s the most relaxed person on the floor. He’s got one of the best sommelier jobs in town, which comes with a big-time budget and a cellar he’s expanded to include about 2,000 selections and 21,000 bottles. The list is filled with important wines -- some interesting, but many just pretentious wines for people who drink by the points. Mendoza pours 50 selections by the glass, including some killer dessert wines, which lets him play loose and crazy with the wine pairings offered, by request, with the tasting menus.

In the end, Sona is frustrating. Here’s a chef who has the skill and the moxie to do some interesting, even great, things in the kitchen, but he continually shoots himself in the foot with self-indulgent cooking. He’s young. He’s talented. But he needs some seasoning. When his food becomes less about showing off and more about giving pleasure, that’s when Sona will have matured into something remarkable.

**

Rating: ** 1/2

Location: 401 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 659-7708; fax (310) 360-7965; www.sonarestaurant.com.

Ambience: Minimalist temple to David Myers’ spontaneous and highly elaborate French cuisine. The crowd is a mix of sophisticated travelers, foodies and Angelenos.

Service: Overbearing and intrusive.

Price: Appetizers, $16 to $21; main courses, $32 to $38; dessert, $12; 6-course tasting menu, $89 per person; 9-course tasting menu, $119.

Best dishes: Mussel tempura, celery root ravioli, peeky toe crab cake in seaweed broth, prime beef tartare, salmon confit, tasting menus.

Wine list: Deep and wide-ranging cellar with more than 200 choices and 21,000 bottles. Fifty wines by the glass. Corkage, $30.

Best table: A corner banquette.

Special features: Private room that seats 25.

Details: Open from 6 to 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 6 to 11 p.m. Fridays, and 5:30 to 11 p.m. Saturdays. Full bar. Valet parking, $5.

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.