Down the coast, uptown dining

NOW that the summer crowds have thinned out, it’s a great time for a road trip -- and La Jolla, the beautiful little town on the coast just above San Diego, beckons. The light there is particularly gorgeous this time of year -- golden, sparkling and Mediterranean.

Strolling through the village, window-shopping and watching Lamborghinis and Ferraris growl slowly by, you can work up an appetite. Fortunately, there’s a terrific spot right in the center of the action. You’ll recognize it by the cunning canopied banquettes on the sidewalk. Passersby stop for espresso or an Italian soda.

That little coffee stand is part of Jack’s La Jolla, a restaurant complex that opened late last year. Inside the huge, open and airy multilevel space are four bars, among them a wine bar and a raw bar, plus three restaurants: a steak house (Jack’s Grille), a casual spot looking over Girard Avenue and the ocean beyond (Jack’s Ocean Room) and a special occasion spot, the Dining Room at Jack’s.

Though chef Tony DiSalvo oversees the menus at all three restaurants, it is for the Dining Room that he actually cooks. And the former chef de cuisine at Jean Georges in New York City has real talent.

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It’s certainly sophisticated

THE two dining rooms at the Dining Room are comfortable and quiet (until the adjacent bar turns into a club at 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday), with soaring ceilings with fans and odd glass sculptures on the walls.

The food is sophisticated. That is to say, DiSalvo has a solid grasp of technique and a real understanding of harmony. The ingredients he uses are impeccable. Over three visits (which included a nine-course tasting menu), fish, fowl, foie gras and meat were perfectly cooked every time. This may sound minor, but DiSalvo understands the role of acid, which can send a dish to a different dimension. And he doesn’t fall prey to the sweetness urge that trips up so many young chefs.

For instance, from the tasting menu, a beautifully seared slice of Sonoma foie gras sits atop braised Belgian endive; next to it are cubes of ripe Mission fig simmered in ice wine. A judicious touch of balsamic vinegar pulls the flavors together. So many chefs go the sweet route with foie, and the more dangerous bitter route is a revelation.

The foie on the regular menu is also unusual, and just as successful, with pickled plums, aromatic shiso leaf and Litsea cubeba, an essential oil distilled from the fruit of the Chinese may chang tree. The oil has a floral, citrusy aroma somewhere between lemon verbena and lemon grass. It’s the first time I’ve seen it on a menu, though San Francisco chef Daniel Patterson (Frisson) has been known to use it too.

Chefs love to go sweet with duck, but DiSalvo resists. Slices of rosy-rare Muscovy breast come with a stack of thin slices of marinated radish and roasted white peach. The radish balances the delicate peach and together they’re perfect with the duck.

DiSalvo shows flashes of brilliance -- how does he cook the ginger in a butter-poached lobster dish? Sliced thin and shredded in the center, it tastes as though it’s been long-simmered to tame the assertive flavor and soften the texture. It’s just a tiny bite, but so unusual and subtle. A lobster bisque amuse is striking for its temperature, a little cooler than barely warm -- it’s exactly right for bringing out the understated flavor of the lobster.

Chilled sweet corn soup with Alaskan king crab, tiny halved tomatoes and basil puree is fabulous: cool and creamy and rich, with an unexpected subtle tang of red wine vinegar.

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Missteps happen

BUT sometimes DiSalvo stumbles. The beautiful tiny chanterelles that accompany slow-baked wild king salmon one night are so undercooked as to be hard and crunchy, with no sauce. What a waste of a great ingredient. A green salad is over-salted and overdressed, with greens that have seen better days. Colorado lamb loin crusted with chile crumbs is a clunker. Several dishes are too vinegary -- such as the sweet corn raviolini that come with a flavorful, crisp-skinned Jidori chicken.

Though the pastry chef who opened Jack’s recently left, the two young patissiers who have stepped up to take his place are sending out some pretty terrific desserts. A huckleberry vacherin with a lemon biscuit and wild plum sorbet is a knockout -- as good as anything I’ve sampled anywhere in months. Traditionally a vacherin is an ice cream-filled meringue shell; here the meringue takes the form of some nutty little lighter-than-air meringue cookies.

Lavender-poached black Mission figs come with a delicious olive oil ice cream scented with rosemary. Chocolate lovers will groove on the “chocolate tasting,” a pot de creme au chocolat, two excellent, slim brownies and white mocha ice cream. All are restrained and elegant, not too sweet.

There’s only one dessert misstep in three visits: a peach tarte Tatin with a crust so tough it’s hard to cut with a knife. But next time, the crust on that dessert is tender and crisp.

After two visits with extreme ups and downs, I’m having a hard time figuring out the Dining Room at Jack’s. The cooking is usually solid, sometimes brilliant; sometimes it takes a divebomb. The service ranges from warm and clueless to cold and professional to friendly and pitch-perfect.

There’s just one thing to do: Order a nine-course tasting menu.

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Tasting menu faux pas

ALTHOUGH the tastings described on the printed menu include many dishes we’ve already sampled, the waiter tells us the chef can create dishes that aren’t on the regular menu so that we don’t repeat what we’ve already tried.

It starts off great. Pristine bluefin tuna sashimi with avocado, sesame oil and ginger, paired with a daiginjo sake. Wonderful. Sweet butter-poached lobster with marvelous texture and wild mushrooms. Burrata cheese with prosciutto and black truffles. Terrific, but the wine pairing is dull: a 2005 Kistler Chardonnay. Next up: foie gras with Belgian endive. Spectacular.

Then things get dull. Red snapper served over slow-roasted tomatoes with a cucumber-yogurt emulsion and a little fregola, the Italian couscous-like pasta, on the side. That’s from the regular menu; the waiter had asked us if we had sampled it before, and we hadn’t. OK, but it immediately blurs in my mind with the sea bass that follows, especially because they’re paired, respectively, with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and a Sancerre.

Our tasting includes no fowl, nor any pasta or risotto. The impression is fish, fish, fish, then boom: a beef duo. That’s lousy planning. The waiter had asked if we had the beef before, and we said yes. Yet the chef sends it out for both of us. It’s an original idea -- medium-rare beef tenderloin with pickled shredded short rib underneath, and a nice stack of roasted julienned carrots and a bit of celery root puree. On my second visit, the dish had been amazing, but this time, as on my first visit, the short ribs are far too vinegary; the acid overwhelms not only the dish but also the Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir it’s paired with.

The cheese course is a disaster: over-the-hill, browning and bad-funky Bailey Hazen Blue, criminally paired with a 1996 Barolo. The wine goes metallic and thin against the blue cheese.

We’re back on track with the dessert course: a melting Valrhona chocolate cake with passion fruit and coconut and an unusual semolina pudding cake with corn ice cream and a little berry salad.

The waiter apologizes that there’s no Port to go with the chocolate; the last wine is German Beerenauslese Riesling.

The whole thing takes four long hours; the downtime really drags, though the dining room’s never more than half full (and the place is small; just seven or eight tables in each of the two rooms). The wine pairings are amateurish. There is no sommelier (he left last week), forcing the waiters to wing it on the pairings.

Ah, well, it’s La Jolla, not L.A. or New York.

Still, I’d happily go back -- any time -- and order a la carte. DiSalvo may have a way to go before he gets to superstar chefdom, but when he’s hitting his marks, he’s awfully good.

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brenner@latimes.com

S. Irene Virbila is on vacation.

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The Dining Room at Jack’s

Rating: ** 1/2

Location: 7863 Girard Ave.,

La Jolla; (858) 456-8111; www.jackslajolla.com.

Ambience: Quiet and elegant dining rooms within a three-restaurant, four-bar complex. Noise spills over from the adjacent bar when it turns into a club Friday and Saturday nights at 10:30.

Service: Usually friendly and professional, but it can also be clueless.

Price: Appetizers, $10 to $22; main courses, $28 to $40; desserts, $10 to $12. Five-course tasting menu, $65 per person (or $89 with wine pairings); seven-course tasting menu, $85; nine-course tasting menu, $110.

Best dishes: Chilled sweet corn soup with Alaskan king crab, tomatoes and basil; poached Maine lobster with risotto, apple and kaffir lime broth; sauteed Sonoma foie gras with pickled plums, shiso and litsea cubeba; Muscovy duck breast with white peach, radishes and ginger-spice jus.

Wine list: Pricey, with some interesting French selections, a lot of expensive Piedmont wines, the usual California suspects; lip service to Spain, the rest of Italy and the rest of the new world. It’s difficult to find interesting reds for under $50. A couple of dozen half-bottles are offered, plus a page of sakes and a page of wines by the glass. Corkage fee: $25 for wines not on the list; $35 for wines on the list.

Best table: The corner banquette in the dining room off Jack’s Wall Street Bar.

Special features: A good jazz trio plays on Sunday nights.

Details: Open for dinner Sundays through Tuesdays from 5:30 to 9 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays from 5:30 to 10 p.m.

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.