RESTAURANT REVIEW : Cafe Star Stands Out With Modern California Cuisine

Glendale’s Montrose, nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, looks rugged and pristine, almost like an alpine community in Colorado. The neighborhood’s tree-lined main shopping street, Honolulu Avenue, is mildly reflective of the ‘50s, the kind of street you’d see in an episode of “Leave It to Beaver.” Mountains peek out through the haze over the rooftops. This is as peaceful as it gets in greater Los Angeles.

Then you notice that Honolulu has gotten to be a regular Restaurant Row, what with Rocky Cola Cafe, Barragan’s and the newest addition, Star Cafe, which bills itself as “contemporary California.” Star Cafe, opened by the owner of Noodles, has a thoroughly modern menu that dispels any ideas about a time warp in the neighborhood: It’s doubtful the menu contains a single dish you could have found in the ‘50s.

You can see fire glowing in the brick pizza oven when you walk through the door, smell the meats charring on the grill and feel the roughness of sawdust under your heels. The brick walls are covered with French posters, and the narrow tables and uncomfortable chairs positively scream Francophile insouciance. But the menu is firmly rooted in Americana.

Ignore the silly, overly sweet rolls baked on the premises and head right for one of the cafe’s excellent pizzas or calzones. Duck sausage pizza is perfectly crafted: just the right amount of cumin-infused sausage on a mildly cheesed dough, with sun-dried tomatoes and a complement of cilantro. Four-cheese pizza, sold in practically every American cafe opened during the past five years, is delicious. A zesty blend of fontina, mozzarella, Parmesan and Romano is fused together in the oven, making a delightfully gooey topping. Tomato sauce? You must be joking.

Appetizers such as roasted Anaheim chili stuffed with goat cheese--didn’t I have something exactly like this at Pasadena’s Parkway Grill?--or scallop- and prosciutto-stuffed mushrooms (which taste suspiciously like escargot in garlic butter sauce) make for other appealing preludes.

Salads are good. Caesar, a mix of ‘80s greens with wonderfully crunchy croutons, is topped with a tiny hill of shredded Parmesan. Grilled chicken salad is even better: A big, meaty chunk of grilled breast is placed on garlic-dressed chopped lettuces and warm field mushrooms. There’s a ho-hum Greek salad with a rather tacky name: Jackie-O. The dinner salad is just fine.

The pasta dishes sometimes go overboard. Red pepper fettuccine with curried shrimp in a papaya Grand Marnier sauce was simply inedible. The waitress insisted that we try something called chicken-tequila cream with spinach fettuccine; we wished we hadn’t. Homemade ravioli were quite tasty, although the tomato-sage cream sauce was cloying. The simpler pastas tend to be the best. There’s a perfectly honest linguine Bolognese, and the shallot and garlic fettuccine is probably the restaurant’s best dish.

The grilled dishes and pizza-bread sandwiches don’t really generate much excitement. Grilled dishes, despite being served with an interesting three-cheese polenta, are especially disappointing. On two separate occasions, the fresh fish was dry and tasteless. Broiled marinated chicken was undercooked, then almost drowned in a tomato sauce advertised as salsa. Cajun scallops were burned.

Star Cafe prepares a few desserts on the premises, but the real winners come from Pasadena’s Olde Town Bakery. The peanut brittle cake--layers of banana cake with a crunchy peanut filling and a creamy peanut frosting--is my favorite. Almond Roca cake, a chocolate-enrobed vanilla cake with pieces of candy stuck to the top, is another reason you’ll be glad you came.

Star Cafe, 2217 Honolulu Ave., Montrose. (818) 957-7827. Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. Beer and wine. Limited parking in rear lot. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $20-$35.