There’s nothing like it

SONA is the most ambitious restaurant to open in Los Angeles in a long while. As other young chefs turn out easy-to-cook, easy-to-please American comfort food, David and Michelle Myers are taking chances. And even if their vaulting ambition can sometimes trip them up, when their intricate, cerebral cuisine works, eating at Sona is one of the most exciting dining experiences in the city.

Opening such a high-concept restaurant at this particular moment has to be a challenge. Yet the fact that this 4-month-old restaurant is doing so well tells me that people are hungry for something different. Comfort food is grand, but Angelenos still have an appetite for dining as theater.

On a first visit in December, Sona’s stark, silent dining room seemed chilly, though the service staff worked hard to warm up the atmosphere. Every object was so exactly placed, I felt as if I’d wandered into a chic art installation in Berlin.

I spent the evening watching the way taillights on La Cienega reflected off the furrowed glass windows. Four months later, what a difference -- the room is full of life and talk and laughter, and waiters are no longer trying to look busy. They are. Everybody with a serious interest in food has been showing up at the dazzling white Modernist cube on the corner of La Cienega and Westmount to see what these young chefs are up to.

The couple, who bill themselves as “chef-founders” have shaped every detail, from the soft murmur of the stone water sculpture at the door to the severe, monochromatic waiter’s attire, the visually arresting flower arrangements on each table and even the uneven surface of the walls. The single page menu, light as a leaf, is attached to piece of vellum from Paris.

Admire a serving plate, and the waiter will rush back to the kitchen to find out who made it. Comment on the coffee, and you’ll be informed it comes from a small roaster in Seattle. Ask about the massive granite “decanting stone” in the middle of the dining room, and you’ll soon know it weighs 6 tons and had to be lifted in by crane. It can get a little precious.

After a handful of visits, I can’t quite get a fix on the place. Maybe it’s because Sona is really two different experiences, depending on whether you go with a tasting menu (the waiter will explain that the chef is into “spontaneous cuisine”) or order a la carte. The truth is, I liked Sona better when I went with the tasting menu, less when I ordered a la carte.

A passion for omakase

David Myers, who was the chef at Jaan in the luxe Raffles L’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills, and before that, executive sous-chef at Patina, revels in sending out a series of small courses with an Asian aesthetic. He might serve a few bites of poached lobster with jade green soybeans and a perfectly pitched ponzu sauce. A morsel of Atlantic halibut arrived one night in a gorgeous watercress soup inset with fat pearls of tapioca. He’s as aware of textures as any Asian chef when he offers albacore scattered with pumpkin seeds and wasabi caviar, a study in silk and crunch.

One time, instead of sending out the same duck breast preparation for the three of us, he plied us each a variation on the theme, all equally delicious: one paired with sturdy grains of buckwheat, another with boudin and “beluga lentils” perfumed with shiso, the last set off by a vivid swirl of red wine reduction.

The small-scale canvas of these plates seems to suit his sensibility well. He likes highlighting an unusual, rare ingredient and playing it against something unexpected. Essentially, he’s doing what the Japanese call omakase. This is what interests him, and what he’s truly passionate about. The occasional dish, however, can verge on the silly: Some things almost need surgical tools to deconstruct instead of conventional flatware. And, in a way, his style is not so much cutting edge as retro -- looking back to nouvelle cuisine. It’s like the kids now discovering mid-century modern.

While the a la carte menu does take some risks, for the most part, it’s much more conventional, which, of course, it needs to be to fill the tables every night. But this format clearly doesn’t engage Myers in the same way that his tasting menu does. And he has trouble translating his ideas to a larger format. Still, there are some inviting tastes.

As an amuse bouche, for example, he might send out an egg with chawan mushi, a shimmering Japanese custard made with a subtle broth. The color of cafe au lait and studded with beautiful baby clams, it really does feel like a gift. Bread is a sourdough pillow the size of an egg, a piece of olive-laced focaccia or skinny grissini shiny with salt.

An appetizer of celery root ravioli is made not with pasta but fine transparent slices of the gnarly vegetable. Celery root is a wonderful foil for the salty sweetness of the salmon confit filling, and its greeny beige looks lovely against the green of peas, a svelte pea sauce and a scattering of pistachios. Pretty little salt-roasted beets are tucked beneath bouquets of mache. The dressing looks like drops of blood on the leaves. Another first course drapes white and red tuna sashimi over a cucumber salad ringed with a sauce that carries a thrilling jolt of wasabi caviar.

A la carte dishes are served on grandly proportioned square white plates. Every time a runner arrives with the next course, it becomes a matter of nudging glasses and silver around, so he can set down the plates without knocking anything over. Worse, the plating is self-conscious and fussy. Instead of looking appetizing, some of it makes you flinch. Rounds of poached jidori chicken breast are lined up like stacked dominos across a plate with sliced artichokes along its flank.

On a pristine white plate, smoldering black hunks of braised veal cheek are as unattractive a treatment I’ve encountered, but taste wonderfully unctuous and rich. Its odd garnish, a slash of celery root puree, bristles with upright blue potato chips. It’s not a good look.

And on that unforgiving slab of white porcelain, baby Colorado lamb -- shoulder, kidney, chop -- resembles something bad-boy Brit artist Damien Hirst might cook up. It too tastes much better than it looks. The food is so mannered, it lacks any kind of natural grace.

Extraterrestrial beignets?

Desserts, listed as “thirds” on the menu, often trump the other courses. A former Patina pastry chef who trained as an artist, Michelle Myers comes out with both guns blazing. Her desserts are definitely original, often wonderful and sometimes utterly baffling. I love her extraterrestrial-looking chocolate beignets made with a gorgeous chocolate so thick and dark it’s almost black. Their spikes and protrusions look like whips one minute, like planetary extrusions the next. And by the way, they’re delicious.

Her hand-pulled strudel is a fragile feat, the transparent dough filled with dark griotte cherries and paired with a bittersweet black beer ice cream. Her lovely “mimosa” served in a martini glass holds three levels of icy flavor -- a Prosecco granita, blood orange sorbet and a splash of tangerine “froth.”

But then, just when I’m cheering for her, she adds a new creation, a revolting foie gras and apple sorbet crowned with a piece of seared foie gras. It’s the unfortunate color you get when you mix foie gras with green apple. I’ll try anything, but this, like a couple of dishes from the brilliant Ferran Adria at El Bulli in Spain, actually made my lip curl involuntarily.

But at least she and her husband are trying something. And their passion for food is unmistakable.

*

Sona

Rating: ** 1/2

Location: 401 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood; (310) 659-7708.

Ambience: Chic, minimalist space anchored by a massive granite “decanting stone” stage center. Techno-eclectic soundtrack keeps the room pulsing as waiters bring out course after course of high-concept food.

Service: Waiters in severe suits are both warm and efficient.

Price: Appetizers $9 to $21; main courses $28 to $35; desserts $10 to $15; six-course tasting menu, $69 per person; nine-course spontanee menu, $99 per person.

Best dishes: Tasting menus, which vary daily, are by far the best choice. Among the a la carte dishes: celery root ravioli, salt-roasted beets with mache, confit of wild Scottish salmon, buttermilk-poached jidori chicken, chocolate beignets, hand-pulled strudel.

Wine list: Less ambitious and cutting edge than the menu, it’s a work in progress with not enough choices that truly complement the food. Corkage $15, but only if the bottle is not on the list.

Best table: One near the decanting stone, the high table where wine is served.

Details: Open for dinner Monday through Thursday, 6 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 5:30 to 11 p.m. Valet parking, $3.50

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.