Seriously chic, with a surprise

IN the world of design-driven restaurants, Hokusai in Beverly Hills is a rare bird. It has all the gorgeous plumage that draws the trendy, sushi-loving, sake-sipping crowd, but it also has modern Japanese cuisine serious enough to interest discriminating restaurant-goers.

Named for the Japanese painter and wood engraver Katsushika Hokusai, whose series of woodblock prints, “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji,” influenced Impressionist artists in the mid-19th century, Hokusai moved into the former Continental space on Wilshire Boulevard five months ago. Not to worry. The place on the corner of Gale Drive no longer resembles a gloomy prison ward dispensing green apple martinis to a louche gang of actors manques. You won’t recognize the place.

The look could have come straight out of Ginza or Shibuya in Tokyo. Hokusai features a slick back-lighted bar where singles sit side by side, leaning into each other, talking sake or martinis with the bartender. For a drink with a date, or talking about something truly painful like your taxes or why a script won’t sell, take one of the adorable tables for two along the windows.

One night the bar is taken over by a birthday party, turning it into a festive private room of sorts, without that claustrophobic feeling many private dining rooms have.

The scale of Hokusai is more intimate than that of Koi or Katana, with less room to swan. The place has a cozy, enclosed feeling with tables covered in black linen lined up in closely set rows, and along the wall, a comfy banquette in Champagne-colored leather and chenille.

Sheer, billowy curtains cover a wall of windows, softening the lights of cars streaming by. Shadows of the building’s Deco details cast on the curtain-screen add visual interest too and tie the room to the streetscape outside.

The design is smart and of the moment, which is to be expected for any sushi restaurant that wants to be noticed. What’s unexpected is the quality of the food and the service. Unlike some other places I could name, the kitchen here takes pride in what it’s turning out, whether a flashy sushi roll, an order of vegetable tempura or a full-scale omakase (chef’s choice) menu, which, incidentally, is something of a bargain compared with places such as Mori Sushi or the Hump.

The two kitchens, sushi and cooked food, work in tandem. That’s why the best strategy is to lay down some parameters and just let the two chefs do their thing: Go for the omakase, which includes new-style sushi dishes and the occasional dish from the other side of the kitchen, all presented on eye-catching ceramics.

You’ll get a more interesting and better-paced meal than if you order a la carte, plus you’ll get the advice of someone who really knows both the food and the sake to help choose a rice wine to accompany your meal.

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Delicious parade

ONCE the food starts coming, all focus is on the plate. Omakase might start one night with three pieces of red snapper topped with oba leaf, a fingernail-size slice of dried cod roe (think miniature bottarga), sea salt and a scoop of osetra caviar. Each element tastes of the sea, and together the effect is wonderful.

Then you might be presented with another long, slender platter, this time arranged with yellowtail sashimi decorated with minced cucumber and sweet red peppers and, for a little fireworks, a dab of yuzu and hot green pepper paste served in a light soy sauce swirled with oil. A ball of hand-cut toro tartare is embellished with pickled wasabi stem and a sharp blast of fiery root. The fish is velvety and full of flavor, the surest indication of its quality.

And when the straight sushi arrives, one piece each of five or six types, each grain of rice is firm, but separate, the fish or shrimp is precisely cut and the pieces are just the right size to pop in your mouth whole.

A bright yellow square of sweet egg omelet called tamago, cooked the old-fashioned way with ground-up fish, sits to one side of the sushi platter. Custardy and slightly sweet, it highlights the flavor of a piece of beautiful bluefin toro or a silvery slice of kohada (Japanese gizzard shad) marinated in vinegar.

When manager Tiger Nakawake, who is also a partner in the restaurant, approaches the table in his inimitable warm and saucy manner, listen up. He’ll tell you straight what’s best that day: He did the shopping, after all. Sometimes that means getting up in the early morning and driving downtown to the Japanese fish market; other times it might mean meeting a plane at LAX.

Sushi chefs tend to drown sashimi in soy or other sauce, because that’s the way most people like it. (Or, in any case, most people give sushi or sashimi the kind of serious dunk that must make good sushi chefs cringe.) Hokusai’s chefs, however, mitigate the salt by making their own, much less salty and much more delicate soy sauce.

The sauce for the seawater eel is more subtle than most too, so an order of unagi is a fine way to finish off a couple of rounds of sushi here.

Whatever your tastes, a meal can be custom-tailored to suit just about anybody. Don’t eat anything raw? Nagase, who also worked with Nobu Matsuhisa, will whip up something from his storehouse of fusion dishes.

More of a steak eater than a sea-urchin fancier? He’ll send out a hefty rib-eye steak lavished with jalapeno butter and veal stock.

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Beautifully sauced

MAIN courses show a French-Japanese bent. Jidori, or free-range chicken, is cut into medallions and laid in a long row on a platter, easily enough for two or three to share. This bird has plenty of inherent flavor, and chef Charlie Nagase grills it and adds a kicky yuzu sauce that really makes the flavors sing.

For another terrific dish, he braises Kobe beef cheeks in red wine, veal stock -- and soy, which melds into an intriguingly nuanced red wine sauce. Other Wagyu beef on the menu comes from Kagoshima prefecture.

If you arrange ahead, Hokusai will do a kaiseki-style menu, but somehow it always segues into sushi, which is fine by me. The one dish that stands out from such a meal is a bowl with pristinely fresh sea bream with earthy turnips and bright green snow peas.

Frankly, I never expected Hokusai to be such a find. The fact that many of those involved come out of the Sushi Roku school of restaurants doesn’t seem like such a great recommendation since the quality has slipped over the years from decent to barely adequate.

Nagasake, who worked at Matsuhisa before leaving to help found Sushi Roku, worked with the enormously successful group for years. That actually may give him an edge in creating something better.

Hokusai stocks a nice list of sakes in various styles. Sake has become quite fashionable of late, but most places don’t have anyone to explain it and help novices learn something about the drink. Hokusai has Nagasake, who is adept at explaining the qualities of each type.

He also has some special bottles in reserve that his father or friends bring over from Japan when they visit. It’s well worth taking advantage of the opportunity to taste one.

“Wow,” I hear a guy exclaim as the server sets a skinny rectangular plate in front of him. The rest of his party repeats it like a chorus, as they get theirs. It’s dessert, of course. Pretty to look at, very pretty to taste.

One time it’s fruit and a square of red bean cheesecake made with mascarpone on a lemon cookie crust. Another, it might be a clever orange jello molded into the hollow of an orange.

Whatever, it’s light enough to send you out the door on a grace note, lucky to have come across this civilized restaurant in the wilds of Beverly Hills.

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virbila@latimes.com

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Hokusai

Rating: ** 1/2

Location: 8400 Wilshire Blvd. (at Gale Drive), Beverly Hills; (323) 782-9717; www.hokusairestaurant.com. The corner coordinates will help because Hokusai is so hard to spot it’s almost a stealth restaurant. Look for a dark facade with a white umbrella in front. Weeknights, the valet is probably not waiting in attendance; a sign indicates you should turn into the adjoining parking lot on Wilshire, where eventually the valet parker might emerge from the shadows -- after you’ve parked your car -- and ask for $5 upfront.

Ambience: Sleek Beverly Hills Japanese-French restaurant and sushi bar with a back-lighted bar, a strong sake list and a crowd that relishes raw fish. Trendy, yes, but with food that’s a cut above the usual venues.

Service: Helpful and professional. The kitchen is also very adaptable to clients’ likes and dislikes.

Price: Appetizers, $3 to $8; greens, $7 to $15; main courses, $18 to $32; tempura, $2 to $13; sushi, $4.50 to $15; sashimi, $9 to $14; omakase (chef’s choice) starts at $80 per person.

Best dishes: Sushi and sashimi, yellowtail carpaccio, red snapper with cod roe and caviar, Jidori chicken, Kobe beef cheeks, omakase, red bean cheesecake, fantasy orange.

Wine list: A fine sake list with some bottles that are not ordinarily available. Corkage fee, $15.

Best table: The single booth cocooned in black glass walls and lighted by a Sputnik-like chandelier.

Details: Open Monday through Saturday for dinner from 5:30 to 10 p.m.; for lunch Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Happy hour is Monday through Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking, $5.; also street 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.