RESTAURANT REVIEW

With excitement on the plate

Jer-ne’s new chef Dakota Weiss brings sparkle and a sense of fun to the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey.

By S. Irene Virbila
Times Staff Writer

May 24, 2006

My twentysomething nephew Gabe has ordered sizzling shrimp at Jer-ne, the restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey, but what he gets is a landscape — a smooth rounded rock that somehow reminds me of a dinosaur egg, heated to 500 degrees and set, very carefully, in a broad ceramic dish (actually the bottom half of a tagine). Our waiter balances two skewers of lavender-gray raw shrimp on top and pours some sauce over that starts them sizzling. Gabe watches them cook for awhile, turns the skewers over and once the shrimp turn opaque, bites into one.

They are fabulous, sweet and meaty, shot through with the punch of wasabi. The server explains they're marinated in wasabi and Japanese seaweed and that the sauce he pours over has some wasabi oil in it. These shrimp rock.

My mother, meanwhile, is on vacation and feeling adventurous, so she's ordered beef satay, skewered strips of filet mignon with a Malaysian curry dipping sauce. But when the waiter sets a hibachi made from a lava rock in front of her, she does a double take. "You take me to a fancy restaurant at the Ritz and I have to cook my own food?" she asks querulously. Then she smiles: This is fun. The filet is tender; she takes it off the grill when it's still a deep rosy pink. The curried peanut sauce is tame enough for her, but what it lacks in firepower it makes up for in complexity.

Jer-ne may just be the spot to break the ice on a family occasion. Dinner here is entertaining, and everybody — young and old — can get into the act. The dining room, with its marina views, has vivid splashes of color, gay red-and-white striped curtains and sexy banquettes. Tables each have a single large placemat instead of tablecloths, and centerpieces are radicchio or endive plants instead of flowers.

The look is contemporary Las Vegas, upbeat but tasteful (not the old-money aesthetic you might expect from a Ritz-Carlton), with gold leaf on the ceiling, massive glass lamps and a tall communal table for singles. A clear glass wall separates the bar from the dining room, the better to observe the "Sex and the City" antics of guests. On the weekends, it's a scene there in the lounge, and with no doors to separate the two rooms, the amplified live music can intrude, but at least the place is alive.

A fresh talent

The new chef is Dakota Weiss, a 30-year-old graduate of the Scottsdale Culinary Institute who has worked at the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta, with Mark Miller at the Coyote Café in Santa Fe and Dean Fearing at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. She's come up in the hotel system with her talent and taste intact. She runs a democratic kitchen; the menu lists the names of all the chefs, not just hers.

Watch Weiss in the dining room as she thanks guests for coming in. She's entirely at ease and still full of energy at the end of the night. She's also a talented cook who brings her own aesthetic to Jer-ne along with a love for Asian cuisines and flavors.

Weiss cooks with remarkable finesse. Dish after dish is a surprise. Her presentation is flamboyant, but never over the top, and she follows through with something delicious, not just flashy.

The moment white asparagus became available, she put the first of the season on her menu. Big as fingers, the ivory spears are garnished with a single sheet of shatteringly crisp smoked prosciutto "chip" tilted on its side. Without butter or a rich sauce, the sweet grassy taste of the imported asparagus sings through. I love it against a bite of candied kumquats, the crisp salty prosciutto and a lashing of true aged aceto balsamico.

Spring arrives too in a slab of pale green spring-onion tofu served in a lidded stone bowl with shaved carrots and an aged soy sauce. The texture is like custard, the taste direct, but the dish may be too plain for some tastes.

I'm not inclined to order something like Maine lobster and brie grilled cheese sandwich, but one of my guests is and it turns out to be heavenly, with Thai basil and sweet roasted red peppers sandwiched in with the lobster and the brie, and some garlic aioli to punch up the flavors. I also love her Manila clams steamed in the shell with swatches of fiery kimchi.

Weiss has kept the eccentric and playful presentations introduced by Troy Thompson, Jer-ne's original chef, who recently left for a Las Vegas project. Dishes are served in tagines or Japanese cast-iron casseroles. Cloches that keep dishes warm aren't formal silver but enamel, in crayon colors with lions' heads on top. Very Versace.

Eating at Jer-ne is never passive. The dining experience is full of drama, with a number of dishes that involve the diner's participation or input.

On another visit, the waiter does the honors for the seared Sonoma foie gras with rhubarb compote and crystallized ginger. Out comes the hot rock, a different one, but similarly shaped. "We've got a lot of rocks," the server tells us, smiling, as he takes a piece of foie gras and rubs it over the surface of the hot rock to sear it. The fat melts away and streams down the sides. Our piece of foie gras is shrinking before our very eyes, which some of my guests watch with anguish.

The waiter seems completely unconcerned, and just when I'm sure one of my guests is about to intervene, he plucks the liver off the rock and serves it on a plate with a tart rhubarb compote and some sharp, sweet crystallized ginger. The combination of flavors is delicious. The foie gras is actually just a touch undercooked, but better that than the reverse.

The main event

Main courses are reliably good, and sometimes great. One night, Berkshire pork sukiyaki arrives: a beautiful bouquet of nappa cabbage along with chrysanthemum leaves, clumps of long, skinny-stemmed persimmon enoki mushrooms and a fan of thinly sliced pork all fit into a cast-iron skillet as precisely as jigsaw puzzle pieces. The waiter turns on the flame on the burner underneath the pan and pours a small amount of dark sweet soy sauce over. I can't imagine how all this stuff is going to cook in that little bit of liquid, but she assures me it will.

I'm dubious, but after a few minutes the vegetables start to give up their liquid, and, with your chopsticks, you can begin to move things around so they cook evenly. I find some rice noodles in there too, along with cubes of tofu. And as soon as the pork is cooked through, it's time to taste. If this isn't good for you, I don't know what is. It's also curiously light. I eat and eat, and never feel full.

Miso chicken breast comes in a wide bowl with its juices. The bird is flavorful and the juices have an emphatic miso funk mixed in with the coconut curry broth, which plays well against the mild chicken. This, I'd definitely order again.

Jer-ne also has a bone-in New York prime steak that's one of the best pieces of beef I've had in awhile. Incredibly tender for a New York cut, it comes with pearl onions on top and, on the side, a small casserole of gratin potatoes with the surprise of blue cheese.

I've almost given up ordering air-dried Peking duck anymore, because most of the time some tired, flaccid bird arrives with zero flavor and not a hint of crispness left. Chef Weiss has the technique down: Hers immediately captures your attention with a wonderfully crisp skin and vibrant flavor. It comes with chow fun noodles laced with crunchy gobo root, peanuts and a sunny side up duck egg. Every bite is completely satisfying.

Curiously, the salads at dinner weren't as strong as the other appetizers. There's nothing wrong with them, except for a tendency toward sweetness in the dressings.

On each visit the staff has been upbeat and respectful, personable, yet not intrusive. It's the kind of service I wish I could find more often. Every waiter I encountered knows how to pour wine correctly, i.e., not too much in the glass. The wine list, much more interesting than the usual hotel list, is another reason why dining at Jer-ne is so pleasant: You can drink wines such as Domaine Tempier rosé from Provence, a J.L. Chave St. Joseph "Offerus" from the Rhône or a Domaine Joly Savennières from the Loire Valley.

For dessert, if you love crème brûlée, Jer-ne offers not one, but five flavors (changing almost daily), each in a glazed sake cup set in a row on a glass leaf-shaped platter. On one visit, the selection includes vanilla, blueberry and hazelnut. Each tastes like itself, if a touch sweet, with a fragile burnt sugar crust. The mini ice cream cones are perfect for sharing too, if you're not going to fight over who gets the coconut or the strawberry or whatever other flavors are on offer that night.

I liked the idea of the warm banana split, but in fact, the fried bananas made the ice cream melt and I missed the cold shock of ice cream against the warm chocolate sauce. One more recommendation: the pine-nut soufflé, suffused with the rich, oily taste of fresh pine nuts.

A little bit of whimsy and a lot of good cooking put this marina-side dining room on the map.

*

Jer-ne

Rating: ½

Location: Jer-ne at the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey, 4375 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey; (310) 823-1700; www.ritzcarlton.com/hotels/marina_del_rey.

Ambience: Fanciful hotel restaurant with marina views, comfy banquettes and a relaxed atmosphere.

Service: Enthusiastic and personable.

Price: Dinner appetizers, $12 to $30; main courses, $26 to $34; dessert, $10 to $25 (for a chocolate fondue that serves four).

Best dishes: Lobster and brie grilled cheese sandwich, sizzling wasabi shrimp, kimchi manila clams, pork sukiyaki, Peking duck, miso chicken breast, mini ice cream cones, crème brûlée.

Wine list: Ample and wide-ranging, with a number of interesting choices at each price level. Corkage, $25.

Best table: A corner banquette.

Details: Open daily for breakfast from 6:30 to 11 a.m.; for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner from 6 to 10 p.m.; brunch Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking, $5 with validation.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality.

Outstanding.
Excellent.
Very good.
Good.
No star: Poor to satisfactory.

To order a reprint of this article, please click here.