Jar Full of Comfort

The name of Mark Peel and Suzanne Tracht’s new restaurant doesn’t give a thing away. It’s called Jar. They aren’t saying why. Does it refer to jar the container or jar the verb? Whatever. It’s a fat and round sound, American and vernacular, which is what the food is like at this in-the-moment American place.

Peel owns Campanile with his wife, Nancy Silverton, and Tracht worked as Peel’s chef de cuisine there in the early ‘90s. The two had long talked about doing a project together, and they had the name well before the space at Harper Avenue and Beverly Boulevard (formerly Indochine, and before that, Monkey Bar) became available last spring.

With general manager Jason Lapin as a third partner, Jar opened in early September, which might not have been the most auspicious time, but as it happens, Jar’s menu couldn’t be more in sync with current events. Just when everyone is looking for solace and conviviality, it offers the comfort of the familiar--steaks, chops, red meat (and, it must be said, some seafood, too), soothing starches and sides--with a modern gloss. It’s food that all of us understand and like. Nothing exotic or challenging, just good products and smart cooking in a sleek, casual setting. Needless to say, it has wide appeal. Campanile regulars are there, along with Hancock Park matrons, the new generation’s rat pack, neighborhood folks and foodies-in-training. It may not be the place for a first date, though. Unless you sit in the bar or the alcove set off by a curved glass partition, the noise level makes intimate conversation a chore.

The design seems at odds with the food. With the restaurant half full, which is not often the case, the room looks severe and uncomfortable. The molded plastic Philippe Starck chairs are stylish, but they’re not built for the sort of people who regularly indulge in the hefty pork chop and mashed potatoes on the menu. Color field paintings hanging on the back wall help soften the bareness, but voices still bounce as sharply as an NBA ball.

Once the food comes, though, skies are blue. First out is a small round loaf of La Brea Bakery bread, natch. Cut in wedges, it arrives on a wooden board with a little French butter tub to keep you busy while you peruse the menu.

East Coasters will zero in on the Ipswich clams dusted with cornmeal and fried to a gold crunch. They come with a haystack of thread-thin fried potatoes in a bowl lined with a swatch of newsprint and with two sauces swirled yin-yang style: a flamboyant red cocktail sauce and a piquant tartar. French green bean and chanterelle salad is piled high and fenced in with tender slices of pink Parma ham. The mustard seed vinaigrette delivers enough flavor to take the edge off your appetite.

Tracht’s steamed black mussels is another first-class starter. She plays the sweet, plump mussels against the earthy taste of leggy water spinach, and serves the dish with a tiny sauce boat of sumptuous lobster bearnaise and a dish of fennel salt. Her winter menu adds a wonderful braised pork belly--with its almost sweet braising liquid and tender pork--to the roster of first courses. You can also get something as simple as a meaty lobster cocktail livened with a chile lime vinaigrette, or a wedge of iceberg topped with a pungent blue cheese dressing.

Tracht seems to have found her element here, because her cooking at Jar is already much more focused and incisive than her Asian fusion at Jozu, where she was opening chef. Honey fried quail, in fact, harks back to that menu, with the addition of a buttermilk dipping sauce. It’s one of Jar’s least successful dishes. I’d add to that the calamari salad, which pairs bland calamari with a shrill vinaigrette.

When it comes to main courses, what you read is what you get--straightforward steaks, chops, scallops or broiled fish, and a handful of braised and roasted items. Pot roast didn’t dare show its face on the aggressively upscale menus of the ‘90s. Here it’s making a comeback--juicy and fork tender, served in a splash of beefy broth. If you want veggies, though, you’ll have to turn to the sides section of the menu. Oh, and don’t forget the creamy horseradish sauce.

Roasted chicken with lemon grass, which sounds rather plain, is unexpectedly lovely. Light and dark meat are crisped to a deep gold, decorated with fine curls of scallion and served in the bird’s lemon-grass-perfumed juices. As described, marinated skirt steak wouldn’t seem to have much glamour, but this is a slam dunk: much tastier than many a pricier cut, charred rare (for tenderness) and sliced on the diagonal. It’s a cut you can really sink your teeth into.

Porterhouse for two is sliced and reassembled around the bone. Ordered charred, medium rare, it’s cooked dead on. The same goes for the New York on the bone. The veal New York (same cut as the steak) is a standout, though, both for flavor and texture.

Unless you’re training for a sumo competition, some of the dishes can be too much of a good thing. The shaggy braised pork shank is quite an item to wrestle with on your own, and gets tiring quickly.

Most of the sides are so delicious that I can imagine ordering a few and having them as dinner. Tops are the pea tendrils, in a swooping porcelain bowl, that taste like the color green. I love the rich potato gratin, too, laced with leek and the Southern-style slow-cooked greens. Creamed spinach is emerald leaves smoothed with the barest dab of cream. French fries showered with garlic and parsley should keep the kid in any of us quiet.

Compared to Campanile’s exciting wine list in its early days, Jar’s is disappointing. And with both Peel and Tracht having worked with Nancy Silverton, it’s surprising the desserts aren’t drop-dead delicious. Though things are looking up. Most desserts used to come from La Brea Bakery, but, thankfully, now they’re sent over from Campanile or made in house.

Best is the ice cream sundae, served with two pitchers of sauce--a dark, syrupy chocolate and a buttery burnt sugar caramel, which I love. Apple crisp and cheesecake are both pedestrian. The lamentable individual lemon tart has been replaced by a wedge of lemon curd tart. If you note double chocolate bread pudding on the menu, don’t pass it up. Served in a bowl with cream poured around it, it’s as black as mud, very soft and yielding, and intensely infused with chocolate.

Jar’s other weak point is service, which, if anything, is overzealous. Water glasses are filled so often that diners threaten to float away. The food sometimes comes from the kitchen so fast, you barely have time to breathe between courses. Yet when I ordered some of the intriguingly named oysters from Chef’s Creek one night, time passed and passed--punctuated by reports that they would be out soon. I could picture the kitchen frantically trying to find the oyster knives, or someone inexperienced trying to wrench open the wretched shells. Nobody minded, really, especially since the staff bridged the moment with a little humor.

Could it be that after L.A.’s infatuations with French bistro, Asian fusion, Tuscan and Thai, American cuisine is the next new thing? And why not, if it’s cooked with as much affection and style as at Jar.

Jar

8225 Beverly Blvd.

Los Angeles

(323) 655-6566

Cuisine: New American

Rating: **

AMBIENCE: Contemporary American restaurant with small bar and lively scene.

SERVICE: Sometimes overzealous. BEST DISHES: French bean salad, black mussels with water spinach, fried Ipswich clams, braised pork belly, pot roast, roasted chicken with lemon grass, veal New York, ice cream sundae. Appetizers, $9 to $14. Main courses, $19 to $29. Sides, $4 to $7. Corkage, $15.

WINE PICKS:1999 Hitching Post Pinot Noir, Central Coast; 1999 Fonterutoli Chianti Classico, Tuscany.

FACTS: Dinner daily. Lunch weekdays. Valet 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.