A sweet Santa Barbara secret

DUCK consomme with persimmon-wrapped duck confit. Local abalone with braised sunchokes and pickled asparagus salad. Herb-roasted yellowtail in Santa Barbara uni (sea urchin) broth with chili brunoise and crisp squash blossoms.

Hungry yet?

As I read over the list of appetizers at the year-old Square One in Santa Barbara, I don’t get a bit of deja vu. This stuff sounds not only delicious, but personal. It’s not just a rehashing of what everyone else around town is cooking. Here’s a young chef, Jason Tuley, who shows some imagination and verve.

And he can cook too.

The consomme is clear as tea, served in an oval bowl with what looks like two pale orange baby tacos. They’re actually miniature crepes flavored with persimmon and wrapped around a few bites of succulent duck confit. The broth has a fruity lilt from pomegranate emulsion. It works beautifully.

Three baby abalone are fried golden and stacked in a pretty abalone shell. Tuley serves the delicious, tender meat with braised sunchokes (they taste like artichoke hearts) and fried capers, and for a piquant note, lightly pickled asparagus salad and an understated lemon foam, the latter for fashion.

A block of yellowtail cooked rare arrives in a broth enriched with the rich funk of local uni. The broth is embellished with bright dots of chili brunoise(finely diced hot pepper); a golden fried squash blossom floats alongside. This is more interesting than yellowtail sushi any day.

With no PR firm flogging its virtues, Square One, even in Santa Barbara, relies on word of mouth, which is worth more than any press release. And yet, except for insiders, it’s flying well under the radar. On a Friday night the place is half-empty, but on a Saturday, it’s packed.

It certainly doesn’t draw attention to itself. There’s no real sign, for one thing, just a square etched onto the front window along with the name. And though it’s only a half a block off lively State Street, on a stretch of East Cota Street framed by rowdy bar-restaurants. I’m glad that when I called, I was told that it’s next to a lingerie shop, or I may not have found it in the dark.

All the more reason to go. Here’s one bright new restaurant where you can actually get a table. Or a bar stool as the case may be. Eating at the bar, actually, is convivial and fun.

Stellar dishes, hands down

SQUARE ONE is basically a long narrow storefront, decorated with a modern and very spare sensibility. One side is taken up by the bar, the other by a row of tables. The walls are what look like a pale blue-green -- in the dark, anyway -- punctuated with a few chrome and glass light fixtures.

At the back, seen through an opening the size of a big picture window, is the kitchen. But it’s no designer’s fantasy. It’s a basic, workaday setup just big enough to fit Tuley and his crew of two. And it’s somehow disorienting to look up from that handsome plate of heirloom tomatoes garnished with chilled blue cheese and Chardonnay gelee to see the kitchen brigade sweating it out in front of the stoves. On a busy night, the pace is relentless. The dishes are complicated and it takes hair-trigger concentration and timing to get four or six or eight different ones to the table at the same time.

Ingredients are mostly local, seasonal and first-rate. Take that abalone. I can’t remember anyplace else where I’ve even seen it on the menu lately. Pork loin wrapped in bacon (a bit on the dry side) is served with quince puree and Chioggia beets, the beautiful ones striped like a red-and-white bull’s eye that are originally from Italy’s Veneto region.

Whole roasted squab comes with an earthy roasted chestnut puree and a groovy take on the Tuscan bread salad panzanella. This one is made with chunks of bread, crisped pancetta, pear and nuggets of blue cheese. It’s this side dish that convinces me to order the squab, not the other way around.

I would come back just for the fried chicken, here made with the smaller and more delicate Cornish game hen. The pieces are adorable on the plate, the batter as furrowed and wrinkly as a Shar-Pei puppy. When you bite into the crisp golden coating, the bird spurts juice. It may be one of the best versions of fried chicken ever. Why didn’t somebody think of this before?

Braised short ribs are a slam dunk too, dark and fork-tender, served with fresh Yukon Gold mashed potatoes and a saffron emulsion that plays up the richness of the beef.

Somehow the fish main courses are less compelling, despite the imaginative ideas. Tai snapper is dressed up with at least one too many elements, crab brandade fighting for dominance with smoked tomato coulis, saffron and roasted fennel. Tasmanian ocean trout, though, is a standout both for the quality of the fish and for the heirloom tomato puttanesca, a lovely mix of tomatoes, olives and capers that escorts the coral-colored fish.

And the menu could use more variation in tone and ambition. Not every dish has to be complicated. It doesn’t take away from anything to step down a notch and include a few very simple, beautifully realized items. Here, the only candidate is the grilled Kobe burger, a nice option if you want something good and something fast.

The service, though, is terrific for Santa Barbara, terrific for anywhere -- personable, yet crisp, informed about the food and even more rare, about the wine. And as small as this restaurant is, owners Tuley and Caitlin Scholle, who runs the front of the house, have invested in good stemware and decanters.

On a slow night when the place is not full, the execution is much more precise than on a busier weekend night, when it can falter under the pressure. If I had dined at Square One only on that busy night, I don’t think I would have been as impressed. The fried Cornish hen was slightly scorched; a fish was overcooked.

The wine list is small, but savvy enough to include bottles like Ojai Vineyard rose, Burgans Albarino from Spain, a few good Central Coast Syrahs and, for dessert, a glass of Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise. They also have several appealing beers, such as Telegraph barrel-aged porter in draft or the Schoenramer Pilsener from Germany -- perfect for that late-night Kobe burger.

The cheese course is overly elaborate. I’m all for serving great cheeses as is. But Tuley sees it differently. It might be fine to order just one cheese, maybe the Valdon, a creamy blue from Spain, which comes with pickled shallots and smoked salt biscotti.

But when an order of four cheeses presents each paired with little dabs and smears of this and that -- roasted garlic vinaigrette, orange oil, summer vegetable escabeche (that is, “pickled” or marinated), smoked paprika emulsion -- it not only detracts from the cheeses, but also the plate looks messy and unappetizing.

Sweet, but not simple

DESSERTS are just as complicated. Chocolate torte is the best, a long rectangle of chocolate as dense as ganache relieved with a light veil of pistachio froth, and presented with a line of orange “dust” and sharp hot cayenne. That will wake you up.

Slow-roasted pears sitting on a crisp pastry are set off with a delicious blue cheese anglaise and some honeycomb. White chocolate creme brulee, though, doesn’t work as well because the elements are all so sweet.

Square One has such a confident style, I wondered where the chef had been hiding himself. It turns out he cooked in San Francisco at Neo in the Mission District, and has been in Santa Barbara for a few years, honing his skills behind the scenes at Citronelle, San Ysidro Ranch and University Club. Now he has the chance to do some more personal, soulful cooking. And though Square One doesn’t have big presence on the street, the fledgling restaurant has presence where it counts -- in the kitchen.

virbila@latimes.com

*

Square One

Rating: ** 1/2

Location: 14 E. Cota St., Santa Barbara; (805) 965-4565.

Ambience: Contemporary storefront restaurant with a bar on one side of the room, a row of tables on the other and the kitchen at the very back. More of an insider’s place than a busy tourist destination.

Service: Personable and considerate. Wine service is especially good.

Price: Appetizers, $8 to $17; main courses, $17 to $30; desserts, $8.

Best dishes: Duck consomme, local abalone with braised sunchokes, herb-roasted yellowtail in uni broth, Cornish game hen “fried chicken,” braised short ribs, grilled Kobe burger, chocolate torte with pistachio froth.

Wine list: Smart one-and-a-half page list, which includes shrewd choices from the Central Coast to France, Spain, Austria and Australia. Corkage fee, $15.

Best table: The booth along the wall.

Details: Open for dinner from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Beer and wine. Street and city 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.