JOYS IN THE ‘HOOD : Good Menu, Swell Service, Comfortable Room: a Branch Grows in Brentwood

Not every neighborhood is blessed with a real neighborhood restaurant, where the greeting is always warm, where they remember your face even if it’s not a famous one, and where if--God forbid--you end up having to eat alone one night, you feel perfectly comfortable because you’re a regular. Brentwood got lucky when Woodside opened a couple of months ago.

The owners have kept the hardwood floors bare and hung a few dramatic, oversized paintings on the brick walls. Victorian ceiling fans stir the air high over the Craftsman-style chairs. And at night, when the tables are set with white linen and candles in fluted glass holders, the restaurant feels as comfortable as an old Harris tweed jacket.

Step in the door, and you immediately sense that this is a team effort. On a busy night, the interplay between the hostess-manager, the servers in pin-striped vests and the young kitchen staff has the fluid quality of an experienced ensemble. The chef is Louise Branch, the diminutive woman with bobbed blond hair setting the pace in the open kitchen.

Still in her 20s, Branch has had a rigorous culinary education at Patina, Stars in San Francisco, and at Bikini, where she was sous-chef. Having this kind of stellar resume doesn’t necessarily guarantee you can cook. If it did, there would be quite a few more great restaurants in this world. Branch, as it happens, can cook. And at Woodside, she moves out on her own for the first time.

And she does so with verve and intelligence. She’s not trying to do more than she’s capable of doing at this point in her career. She’s wisely kept the menu fairly short (eight appetizers, 10 entrees and half a dozen desserts) and, more important, consistent. The servers are not obliged to recite a long list of specials, because there aren’t any. Instead, she’s designed the menu to change every few months.

The fried calamari appetizer is gossamer light and set off with a wonderful fresh mint sauce with a bite of pepper at the end. Ahi tuna tartare, punched up with fresh serrano-ginger vinaigrette and lime, is accompanied with crisp puffs of pappadam . Her minestrone is a light, graceful broth laced with chunks of lobster and slivers of bright vegetables. The timbale, a lovely construction of spiraled eggplant and onion in a basil mozzarella sauce, sounds terrific, but the flavors and textures don’t marry well.

Rather than garnishing each plate with the same ho-hum vegetables, Branch considers each plate as a whole. Spicy grilled gulf shrimp come with fragrant cilantro-laced rice and a snappy corn-and-pepper relish. The grilled pork chop stuffed with prosciutto and sage is set alongside a pile of seductively sharp baby mustard greens and a robust sweet potato gratin. It’s clear she thinks in terms of strong contrasts and vibrant flavors. One of her best dishes is the beef filet heavily encrusted with crushed peppercorns and served with red chard and dreamy mashed potatoes spiked with horseradish. In most circumstances, I might pass up a curried shellfish chowder. Here, that would be a mistake. I was reluctant to share even a bite of this spirited chowder of fat shrimp, mussels, squid and fresh peas.

Branch’s menu also pays attention to the seasons. In the middle of January, it’s silly to feature dishes with tasteless fresh tomatoes, as a number of restaurants still do. Instead, Branch features winter greens and root vegetables, especially in an old-fashioned stew of lamb braised tenderly with turnips, carrots, Brussels sprouts and such in a rich evocative gravy, the whole thing ladled over creamy blackwater grits.

Not every dish is so well grounded. The roast baby chicken one night was tired and overcooked. And a couple of dishes are plainly ill-conceived, notably the penne pasta tossed with three ingredients-of-the-moment--duck confit, radicchio and shiitake mushrooms--then topped with a gluey mass of molten fontina. The other, meant to be the vegetarian plate, is a grilled chickpea patty, dry and dense, suffused with dark-toned Middle Eastern spices to make a kind of upscale falafel, served with a medley of roasted and grilled vegetables.

For dessert, there’s a plate of assorted cookies, enough to feed the entire table, and a fine buttery pear tart embellished with streamers of creme Anglaise. A warm tart of thinly sliced apples wears a demure veil of sugar. On a recent visit, the respectable but staid Belgian chocolate mousse cake had been replaced with a cappuccino mousse version, a fetching dessert shaped as an edible cup (with a baroque curved dark chocolate handle), with chocolate, coffee and white chocolate mousses layered to mimic the way espresso drinks separate into bands of color. The “foam” on top was cool, delicious cream. If this is any sample of the menu to come, I’ll have to start pretending this is my neighborhood.

Woodside, 11604 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood; (310) 571-3800. Open Monday through Friday for lunch, nightly for dinner. Wine and beer. Valet parking. Visa and Mastercard accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $40-$60.