A Handsome Letdown

Despite the buzz, Redwood's food fails the taste test

Redwood
7121 Bethesda Lane, Bethesda
301-656-5515
www.redwoodbethesda.com

* (out of four stars)
Sound Check: 77 decibels (must speak with raised voice)

Four couples are turned away at the door before it's my turn to talk to the host at Redwood. Good thing I made a reservation; from the day in July when this restaurant opened, Redwood has been a hot ticket.

Now that I've eaten here several times, it's hard to explain the crowds. Maybe it's just a matter of location and good design. The restaurant, created from scratch by the owners of the successful Sonoma on Capitol Hill, sits on a short street that is closed to traffic and surrounded by shops whose wares reflect a boutique sensibility. (Instead of Ben & Jerry's, there is Dolcezza gelato.) Redwood's enormous front windows, cracked open in good weather, capture a lounge that looks like a cocktail party you want in on and a dining room that has California written all over it.

As it turns out, the inspiration for the interior came from the legendary American photographer Ansel Adams, says Griz Dwight, the architect of this and other popular area restaurants. "Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space," Adams wrote. Dwight, who says the space is meant to "set you up for a walk" in the woods, brings the photographer's words to life with green lights in the bar, fabric "vines" that double as soundproofing above the tasting bar and lots of warm browns and oranges in the dining room, which incorporates recycled redwood from old olive oil barrels. A deer head and a fireplace set off a private space in the rear. (Co-owner Eli Hengst says the staff jokingly refers to the deer head as "vegetarian," since it's made of resin.)

Tapped from California, chef Andrew Kitko has toiled in impressive kitchens -- Aqua in San Francisco, Cafe Boulud in New York -- in his 31 years. Given his experience, I wasn't expecting flights of fancy, but I did anticipate some imagination and finesse. All too often, however, what I encountered was pedestrian, or worse.

A cake of diced beets and yogurt cheese isn't bad; it's just nothing I haven't seen or tasted in 100 other restaurants across the country. Mussels heaped in a heavy skillet are dried out and flavorless, an unpleasantness magnified by crostini that weren't so much toasted as scorched. Baked, stuffed clams, another way to start a meal, are smothered in a near-sarcophagusof breading. Although I'm not listening for them, complaints from nearby diners ("This isn't what I was expecting") reveal that I'm not the only unhappy camper at Redwood.

Like a lot of restaurants these days, this one advertises its devotion to what's organic and sustainable as well as its connection to area farmers. Those are noble concepts, but good taste should be factored into the promotion, too. "Amish" roast chicken is dry; its lone asset is the "hand crushed" sauce of herbs. Whole rockfish stuffed with lemon slices and oregano is cooked past optimal, as well. Is anyone minding the flames?

Or the seasoning? Dishes "for the table" are meant to be shared, but $40 is still a hefty price for a plate of smoked beef ribs that don't have any second takers once everyone in my group has sampled the meat, which is bogged down by a cloying barbecue sauce.

I'm not a squeamish diner. Over the years, I've eaten barbecued lion's paw, fried grasshoppers, rattlesnake (the meat clearly identified by a diamond pattern) and fish so fresh it was still breathing when it landed on the table. I didn't expect a meal in Bethesda to make me grimace, but Redwood's rotisserie duck did just that. The bird, complete with its curled webbed feet, arrives gray, dry and tasting of having been reheated. Big turnoff. (So was a side dish of corn "pudding" that more closely resembled remnants from the bottom of a bag of muffins.)

There are a few safe spots on this minefield of a menu. The kitchen turns out a pleasant corn soup; gently sweet and slightly frothy, the golden liquid is scattered with croutons for punctuation. The "market" salad is nice, too, with sweet corn, crisp green beans and juicy little tomatoes in the toss. Chicken liver mousse is smooth and rich, slightly sweet with caramelized apples and shallots, and garnished with pickled fruit (figs on my visits) to offset its decadence. Of the main courses, wild halibut from Alaska, enlivened by a dark-orange tomato vinaigrette, has been the most convincing reason to stick around, followed by pork loin on a thick bed of grits.

At least twice, and despite attempts to remain anonymous, I've been busted at Redwood as a restaurant critic. How else to explain the sudden exchanges of a junior waiter for a more polished one and the long lags between appetizers and entrees, typically associated with someone taking extra care with the dishes? "Is it chilled to your liking?" a server asks as he pours a splash of white wine. It is. But the bottle is also quickly emptied as he nearly fills the four glasses on the table, a practice I find irritating because it's generally followed -- as it is on this occasion -- by, "Would you like another bottle?"

Still, the service problems here pale in comparison with the food problems, which extend to the last course. The frozen goat cheese souffle tastes of little more than cold; butterscotch pudding is shy on the featured flavor; and a riff on s'mores -- an idea I've seen elsewhere, and done better -- is a pale version of that campfire classic.

Looks count in this business, and this restaurant would score high if all I were examining were the design and decor. But I'm not. I'm here to eat and to give you the scoop: Redwood is no walk in the park.

Open: lunch Monday through Friday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner Monday through Saturday 5:30 to 10 p.m., Sunday 5 to 9 p.m.; brunch Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. All major credit cards. No smoking. Metro: Bethesda. Street parking. Prices: lunch entrees $10 to $15, dinner entrees $16 to $34.