Flights made fancy

THE Wine House, a large and extravagantly stocked wine shop just off the 405 freeway in West L.A., is known for its densely packed schedule of wine classes and tastings. Devotees and wine novices convene there to learn more about grower Champagnes, assess the new vintage of Barolos or California Cabs or compare Pinot Noirs from the Central Coast with their counterparts from Burgundy or New Zealand. Over the course of one evening or several, friendships have been nurtured, discoveries made and heated arguments over the virtues of this or that wine resolved.

The improvised tasting room on the second floor of the wine shop’s warehouse-like building was never that comfortable though. That is, until owner Bill Knight was inspired this past spring to install a professional kitchen and build out a wine bar he dubbed Upstairs 2.

Designer Lynne Miyake gave it an uptown look with sky blue double-seater banquettes, an ingenious coffered ceiling and windows screened by proper curtains with pleats at the top. Those drapes and a carpet make Upstairs 2 less noisy than many restaurants, pitched for conversation, as it were. When you let loose with those adjectives -- velvety, plummy, burnt rubber, opulent -- you want the wine sniffers on the other side of the table to be able to hear your every word.

The place has a distinctive comfortable vibe. Drop in early and there’s usually a band of regulars, including Knight, perched on stools in front of the small wooden bar, having dinner. Come later, and you might find folks who have just seen something at the Geffen Playhouse or a film at the Nuart, sipping an older Sauternes or Port.

The maitre d’ is thoroughly professional, almost too much of a good thing for such a casual spot as this one, more cut out for the 21 Club than a wine bar, but he does add a touch of class to the place.

Sommelier Marilyn Snee, a recent hire from Boston, where she worked as a wine educator, offers informed and down-to-earth advice on the wide-ranging wine choices. Should you be debating whether to order a 12-ounce carafe of the Domaine Tourmaline Muscadet “Saint-Fiacre” or the Nikolaihof Gruner Veltliner “Hefeabzug,” she’ll know the answer.

Not many wine bars can boast the resources of Upstairs 2. In addition to the ever-changing roster of wines by the glass or carafe, and a lengthy list of bottles, if you arrive before the store closes (at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, 9 p.m. on Fridays), you can buy any bottle downstairs at retail and drink it upstairs for a modest $10 corkage fee. That means any bottle -- a 1998 Paolo Scavino Barolo Rocche, a 1994 Harlan Cabernet blend or the fabled 1989 Chateau Petrus. Or put together your own comparative tasting, pitting three or four bottles from up-and-coming estates in the Anderson Valley or the Languedoc against each other.

The restaurant’s list of wines by the bottle offers the most choice, and you should plan to spend some time poring over the choices, or ask sommelier Snee’s advice. It’s always a good call, though, to start with a white herded into the section “crisp and refreshing,” such as the Domaine Vigneau-Chevreau Vouvray. Under full-bodied whites, you’ll find Qupe’s Roussanne Bien Nacido grouped with Flowers Sonoma Coast Chardonnay and Corton-Charlemagne from Bonneau du Martray. Look to soft and aromatic reds for wines that are more food-friendly than highly extracted Cabernets or Zinfandels. That would include Dolcetto d’Alba, Valpolicella and a lovely Fleurie “Clos des Moriers” from Beaujolais producer Trenel Fils, as well as Marcassin Pinot Noir “Three Sisters Vineyard.”

The stemware is proper, each Riedel glass etched with the number 2. It’s a clever idea, because the pour to the bottom of the number constitutes a 2 1/2 -ounce taste; the top of the numeral is the marker for a 6-ounce glass.

Mix and match

TO create the menu, Knight hired Todd Barrie, a former chef from Joe’s Restaurant in Venice. (Barrie ran the catering division there.) The format is small-plates Mediterranean, which always sounds so alluring on paper but is so difficult to do well. Diners tend to order all over the place, mixing cold dishes with hot, ordering three plates and then two more and then adding five, so the kitchen has a hard time setting a pace. And chefs tend to treat each dish as a mini-entree, laying on too many competing flavors and diminishing each dish’s effect.

Some of the dishes here are delicious and fun -- the dates wrapped in Serrano ham, the garden ravioli stuffed with Swiss chard and tofu. But not every one, which leaves me wondering why Barrie doesn’t simply do a severe pruning, cutting out everything that doesn’t quite work and leaving only the good ones. It would create a much stronger impression and let the wines shine.

Keep the roasted olives and Marcona olives -- they’re perfect for nibbling while the wine aficionado at the table decides which wine or wines to order first. House-cured boquerones (white anchovies) laid across halved tomatoes and drizzled with tarragon oil make a wonderful piquant bite, but if we’re talking dishes that go with wine, the vinegar in the anchovies is a drawback.

Salad, however, is his strong suit. Beet salad is everywhere, but Barrie goes beyond the cliche with a pretty mix of cubed scarlet and golden heirloom beets, bright pickled red onion and crumbled Gorgonzola cheese in a dressing in which the oil and not the vinegar is dominant. A winter salad of roasted root vegetables with toasted pine nuts and wisps of greens in a beautifully modulated sherry vinaigrette is another good choice.

The kitchen comes out swinging with a lush potato salad flavored with lemon and dill and topped with a slice of lightly smoked blue marlin; then it flubs the lump crab cakes by not noticing that the crabmeat is off. Poached shrimp chilled in a thick, almost gelatinous sauce aren’t very appealing either. Even with four hungry guests at the table, nobody finishes them.

Twice baked fingerling potatoes with creme fraiche and caviar sounds like a good idea, but the dab of very expensive Petrossian fish eggs is so minute, it doesn’t really register.

Order up a platter of cheese: You’ll be much happier. The selections are top-notch, but not particularly adventurous -- Humboldt Fog, Manchego, Cabrales, aged Gouda -- culled from the domestic and imported cheeses sold downstairs.

When it comes time for something more like a main course -- make that a downscaled main course in keeping with the small plates theme -- I have one strong recommendation: the wild Tasmanian trout, a beautiful coral-colored fish with an intriguing and delicate taste. Barrie cooks the thick fillet so it’s still almost translucent at the center and serves it with sweet braised fennel and roasted fingerling potatoes. Baked veal meatloaf has an appealingly coarse-grained texture; it’s served on a starchy mash of taro root and with a little black truffle gravy that tastes only faintly of truffles.

But what gives with the “duck” cassoulet? I can only find a few lorn shreds of duck among the bland unseasoned beans. Smoked chicken flautas are a complete miss, looking more like misshapen egg rolls than any flautas I ever met.

Flatbreads, which were good at first, have taken a nosedive since Upstairs 2 opened. The crust tastes as if it’s baked ahead and the toppings just warmed on top. The fig and prosciutto topping is too sweet to pair well with wine. And the duck confit version has just too much going on -- dried tomatoes, mozzarella, wild mushroom ragout -- to make it a good wine match either.

Desserts seem like more of an afterthought -- the usual flourless chocolate cake, a couple of gelatos, including a nicely spiced pumpkin gelato served in its own shell, and a sour ginger lime tart. Your best bet is likely the rich sticky toffee pudding they also sell downstairs.

For my money, though, I’d ask for the wine list and turn to the last page in search of a dessert wine. If you’re feeling flush, go for the half bottle of Chateau d’Yquem or Rieussec Sauternes. Or, in this frigid weather, maybe some classic Port from Warre’s.

Consider this: Upstairs 2 is open late -- until midnight on Wednesday and Thursday, and until an optimistic 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. It’s a brave new late-night dining scene Knight is attempting to create, and the night owls among us thank him. And if the menu is too fussy and ambitious, we might want to remember that Upstairs 2 is still a work in progress. It’s an unconventional one to be sure, open -- take note -- just four days a week in order to leave time for the shop’s perennial wine classes and tastings. For this too we are grateful.

virbila@latimes.com

*

Upstairs 2

Rating: *

Location: 2311 Cotner Ave., Los Angeles; (310) 231-0316; www.upstairs2.com.

Ambience: Small-plates Mediterranean restaurant and wine bar above the Wine House, with, naturally, an in-crowd of wine aficionados.

Service: Engaging and informed.

Price: Cold dishes, $5 to $13; hot dishes, $6 to $16; flatbreads, $9 to $10; desserts, $5 to $6.

Best dishes: Boquerones with tomatoes, winter green salad, cold-smoked blue marlin on potato salad, cheese plate and charcuterie, wild Tasmanian trout, garden ravioli, baked veal loaf, five pepper crusted rib-eye, sticky toffee pudding.

Wine list: Interesting and eclectic list of wines by the glass or carafe. The bottle list can be supplemented by any of the bottles you purchase downstairs in the wine shop before it closes. Corkage, $15 ($10 if you purchase the bottle from the wine shop downstairs).

Best table: A two-seater banquette.

Details: Open from 5:30 p.m. to 12 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 5:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Full bar. Parking in lot behind the restaurant accessed by a ramp to the right of the wine shop.

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.