A New Source for Notable Food

Wolfgang Puck's first Washington restaurant is serving up some mouthwatering dishes

** 1/2 The Source

575 Pennsylvania Ave. NW 202-637-6100 www.wolfgangpuck.com

Open: dining room Monday through Saturday 5:30 to 10:30 p.m.; lounge Monday through Thursday 5 to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to midnight. Metro: Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter. Valet parking. No smoking. Prices: appetizers $14 to $18, entrees $28 to $58.

There are few drawbacks to a job that pays its practitioners to eat out every night. But one of them might surprise you. In our desire to eat below the radar and our duty to move on to the next dining room, most restaurant critics can't become regulars at places they admire.

I express this regret after dining with someone who has already become a habitue of the Source in the yet-to-open Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Introduced in October by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, the Source takes a two-pronged

approach to dining. The first floor, illuminated with countless votives and wrapped in glass, is a lounge devoted to the cocktail-and-small-plates set. The second level -- reachable by a broad, white terrazzo staircase that lets every diner make a grand entrance -- gives a young Puck protege, Scott Drewno, an opportunity to show what he's learned after a decade of working for some American masters. His r¿sum¿ includes Chinois and Spago in Las Vegas, as well as the Asian-themed Vong, conceived by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, in New York.

In the company of my discerning friend, I got to experience the Source with someone who had been there before and was clearly thrilled to be back. While a host eased my companion into a prime perch (a plush settee hugging a window), another employee welcomed her with a handshake.

Every table at the Source receives a complimentary nibble from the kitchen -- a bowl of stir-fried green beans and caramelized walnuts meant to be eaten with chopsticks -- but regulars are also treated to one of the best items on the menu, and a snack familiar to customers at Spago in Beverly Hills. "Spicy tuna tartare" by itself won't stop any presses, but its exquisite staging could. The cool-but-fiery minced fish, glistening like rubies beneath a dusting of shaved bonito, is slipped into a slender cone fashioned from miso and sesame. A savory twist on an ice cream cone, the velvety tuna and its crisp, subtly sweet cylinder are an inspired match. The fillip, which is served three-to-an-appetizer in a wooden holder for $15, disappears in a few bites. Yet its brilliance remains vivid in one's memory.

Drewno's food is exciting on multiple levels, not the least of which is Washington's woeful lack of sophisticated Asian dining. At his best, the chef, 32, turns out class acts such as stir-fried lamb nestled in cool cups of iceberg lettuce, and wok-cooked sea bass. The latter is delivered to the table whole but hacked into shards of fish that are crisp and meaty, then doused with either yuzu or chili-herb sauce. (The racy heat of the second accent works for me.) I could devote a whole meal to an appetizer of pork belly dumplings: dimpled envelopes filled with a mix of meat, dried fruit, cabbage and oyster sauce, splashed with Chinese black vinegar and chili oil, and tempered with a garnish of thinly sliced scallions and herbs. (China-

town, are you listening?) And when friends and I share a starter of Arctic char, we see that Drewno likes to borrow from more than just a handful of countries when he's cooking. Rising from cardamom raita, the stylish stack of pink fish, chutney and pickled Japanese cucumber crowned with micro-greens is one of those seductions that has diners going back for another stab of heat, another bit of sweet -- and sighing once they've reached the end of the ride.