It’s never the same meal twice

EATING out as often as I do, it’s no mystery to me why two people can hold completely different opinions about the same restaurant. It’s not only a matter of taste, or that one person always orders the same thing and the other gravitates toward anything new, the more ingredients the merrier. It’s not due to the alignment of the stars, or because one diner bonded with the waiter and the other found the same server intensely annoying. Dig deeper, and you’ll discover that if two customers weren’t there on the same night, they didn’t go to the same restaurant.

A restaurant meal is not like a film where the viewing conditions can vary but the print you see is identical to the one someone else sees on the other side of town. No two restaurant meals -- or evenings -- are alike. One night, the place is so jammed, the kitchen is struggling just to get the orders out. On another, it may be so slow the cooks are falling asleep from boredom. Maybe one of the key members is missing that day, or somebody new has just taken over the stoves.

Restaurants are as changeable as the weather in Big Sur, which is why reviews are based on not one, but three or four meals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve eaten somewhere on a Monday or even a Wednesday, only to find the head chef doesn’t come in that day, and the second in command simply can’t cut it. Not that I, or anybody else, expects the chef to be in the kitchen every night.

Most of the time it’s sheer myth that the person in the tall toque is back there cooking every single one of your dishes. He or she counts on a hand-picked kitchen brigade to do the hard work. A few kitchens are consistent and turn out the same quality, night after night. Others are wildly variable. And others have no fixed identity.

But Tart, the new restaurant in the Farmer’s Daughter hotel on Fairfax Avenue, across from the Original Farmers Market, is the most changeable yet.

Each time I’ve been to the country-casual restaurant billed as “american fusion food, worldwide wines, under wide open skies,” it seems like a different place. And, especially after my last visit a week ago, taking an average of the experiences hardly makes sense.

In an early visit, the menu is highly ambitious, perhaps a bit too much so, but still, there are some interesting dishes, such as a ceviche of lobster, mango and chipotle chiles doused in lime, or a scallop carpaccio with caviar yuzu cream from the “cru” section of the menu. Spanish chorizo soup, though, is thickened to the point of wallpaper paste, which seems a curious aesthetic.

All in all, despite the self-conscious chef-ly touches -- the usual dribble of sauces, the silly garnish -- I think Tart has real possibilities if the chef could tailor the menu to what the kitchen can successfully execute. (And spell. The printed list is rife with misspellings.)

There is something so appealing about the look and the feel of the place that everyone I take to Tart loves being there. First of all, there’s the small, pretty dining room with a witty rustic decor that plays up to the hotel’s farmer’s daughter theme. Cabinet doors are stenciled in lace. A wood hutch holds aqua- and cream-colored dinnerware. Captain’s chairs are pulled up to the tables in the center of the room, and a cozy banquette fits into the corner. The lighting is perfect.

It’s hard to believe this quiet, serene room was once the raucous Olive, when the concept of club food was just getting started. Now, as Tart, it’s one of the few restaurants where, on a slow night, it’s actually quiet enough to have a long conversation with friends.

Courtyard charm

I come back for breakfast, or really brunch, one weekend, and fall in love with the outdoor patio, a sprawling courtyard space that links the newly hip, turquoise-painted hotel with the restaurant. A garden of succulents is potted in rusted steel containers. Piazza lights are strung overhead, and updated picnic tables and banquettes are tucked under the eaves, sheltered by a ledge of galvanized tin. It all has a quirky charm.

This time we have a waiter who pulls up a chair and sits right down to take our order, and when I’m not convinced I’d like the orange and pineapple juice combo, he runs back to the kitchen to personally, so he says, make me one anyway -- just for science.

And when my burger arrives well-done instead of medium rare, he cheerfully sends it back to the kitchen and returns with a perfectly cooked and quite delicious rendition topped with apple-smoked bacon and smoked cheddar. Smoked salmon and a bagel is perfectly fine too. And the coffee is good and strong.

It is so lovely sitting there in the shade on a warm afternoon that I can imagine making this a hangout for breakfast and lunch. I even look at some rooms, so I can recommend it as a moderately priced hotel.

The patio holds its charm at night too, when I have a couple of meals that are much better than I had the first time around. The menu has been streamlined; dishes have fewer ingredients and descriptions are simpler.

On this visit, some dishes are quite good. There’s that burger, still beefy and delicious under its coverlet of smoked cheddar. But there’s also a couple of compact, sea-worthy crab cakes in a poblano corn emulsion and, as an appetizer, a crackling crisp duck leg confit -- a main course size portion really -- paired with a tweedy oatmeal flapjack and a slurry of blackberries, which is fun. The confit is as good as any I’ve had at a French restaurant.

Seared bay scallops served with corn fritters and sauteed mustard greens laced with ham is a winning combination too. Pappardelle tossed with chunks of moist chicken, sauteed mushrooms and leeks and topped with shaved manchego cheese is a lovely surprise. But the best is the special: broiled Maine lobster that tastes like lobster, and is perfectly cooked. We devour every morsel. And for dessert, a blueberry tart with a tender, buttery crust makes a big impression. I couldn’t wait to go back.

But when I e-mail the publicist for some background on the chef, the answer is that the chef is no longer there and the owners have decided to make Tart a less chef-driven restaurant. And that would mean what? A dishwasher-driven restaurant? A hostess-driven restaurant? Who exactly is in the driver’s seat?

Well, she explains, the menu is an evolving collaboration between the owners and the cooks, which would be, presumably, line cooks. When did the chef leave? Two weeks ago, it turns out.

Uh-huh. That means that my last meal, the one that had me thinking two stars, took place while the chef was still there. I can’t say it doesn’t worry me, but I hope for the best as I set off for another meal.

What a difference. A salad of fresh spinach, candied pecans and a rubble of blue cheese tastes as if it’s been dressed in neutral cooking oil without the benefit of vinegar or lemon to liven up things. Beef carpaccio is thin rags of beef served with grilled corn that’s completely dried out. Crab n’ cheese mac, a new item, tries to put a twist on the latest fave dish, but the effect is rich and muddled in flavor.

Fries are good, one of my guests pipes up. So is the cowboy steak, which has been on the menu since Day One, and is always excellent. But now, in the midst of all the mediocre food, it has a hard time shining. Wild salmon is cooked just right, rosy in the center with an almost custardy flavor, but everything else on the plate -- potatoes with artichokes and ham and far too much saffron tomato sauce -- is a bit of a mess.

Vegetable pie

I’M playing the vegetarian tonight, only because I thought the vegetable pot pie sounded interesting. But what a concept. Take a bowl, half fill it with roasted root vegetables -- turnips, potatoes, carrots, the occasional mushroom -- stretch some puff pastry over the top tight as a drum, stick it in the oven and brown. Serve with a sauceboat of something that has a horrible soapy taste. No saving this.

The banana cream pie under a drift of softly whipped cream is some consolation, though. And a s’mores sundae with homemade graham cookies and dark fudgy chocolate plays well to our inner kids. And we’ve had such a good time with our waiters, who are helpful, funny, wry and real, one and all, that it mitigates the disappointment of the wrongheaded direction that Tart’s owners seem to have taken.

What can I say? The farmer’s burger is the only way to go. Get a table outside, and for $13 plus tax and tip you can have a nice evening.

*

Tart at the Farmer’s Daughter

Rating: Half a star

Location: 115 S. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 556-2608; www.farmersdaughterhotel.com.

Ambience: Urban rustic with captain’s chairs and a hutch full of dishes in the dining room and a mix of hotel guests and locals. Outside in a sprawling courtyard, dark red picnic tables hug the walls, with a potted succulent garden and old farm implements for decor.

Service: Quirky and personable.

Price: Dinner appetizers, $8 to $13; entrees, $13 to $35; desserts, $7 to $8; breakfast dishes, $4 to $14; brunch dishes, $9 to $12; lunch entrees, $8 to $13.

Best dishes: Crab cakes, wild salmon, chicken pappardelle, farmer’s burger, cowboy steak, blueberry tart, banana cream tart.

Wine list: Half a dozen wines by the glass, plus a limited selection of wines by the bottle. Not much ambition here. Corkage, $15.

Best table: One of the eight-seater outdoor picnic tables with its own heat lamp, or a corner table in the dining room.

Details: Open daily for breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., for dinner Monday through Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m. Brunch menu, Saturday and Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Full bar. Street and lot 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.