CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Culver City just got a little bit more exciting.

By Leslie Brenner, Times Staff Writer

As if the openings of H.D. Buttercup, Ford's Filling Station and Tender Greens, and the transformation of Surfas weren't enough, now there's the MODAA lofts, the Museum of Design Art & Architecture Gallery and Wilson, the new restaurant headed up by chef Michael Wilson, formerly of 5 Dudley in Venice.

The complex, which takes up a full block of Washington Boulevard between South Sherbourne Drive and Cattaraugus Avenue, also houses the architectural firm that designed it all — Studio Pali Fekete Architects. With six live-work artist lofts, plus the museum — which is really more gallery than museum (tonight an exhibit featuring auto designer and Batmobile creator Harald Belker opens) — and Wilson, the sleek-looking restaurant on the corner, the block provides some serious eye candy. Park across Washington Boulevard (you may have to, because there's no valet) and take in the syncopated sculptural façade, the madcap palms.

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Of course, the eyes of food lovers will be drawn to Wilson, with its open sliding glass doors, leaf-green curtains moving softly in the breeze. Inside, the inviting space feels more wine-bar/cafe than serious restaurant. With orange tables, chairs that look like striped licorice candies and huge cylindrical lamps that chef Wilson says were designed to mimic air conditioning vents, it's super cool.

You can take a table and have a proper lunch or dinner, or sit at a high table in the window and order small plates, listed on the menu as "foodbar." Better yet, take a seat at the bar, under the 20-foot mural of chefs in the 1920s performing calisthenics on an urban rooftop, and chat with the chefs as they cook lamb skewers with tzatziki, moist tea-smoked whitefish or escargot skewers with porcini butter. And have a glass of wine — there are 10 offered by the glass, along with some interesting beers (one, Waimea Bay Pale Ale, is described on the bottle as coming from a 100-year-old coconut grove in Kauai).

Wilson owns the place jointly with Antonio Muré and Stefano de Lorenzo of Piccolo Ristorante (in the former 5 Dudley space) and La Botte in Santa Monica — some pretty good Italian creds. So when I see tagliolini with truffle butter sauce and shaved black truffles on the menu, I decide to splurge. They can't possibly be what's commonly referred to as black truffles (that is, black winter truffles) because those are long out of season, but that's how they're identified on the menu. And $35 seems a little steep for summer truffles, which is what they must be.

I ask our server whether they're summer truffles, and she insists they're not; they're black truffles. I ask her to ask the chef, and yes, it turns out, they're summer truffles. And yes, $35 is indeed a bit steep, when the ingredient costs just a fraction of what black winter truffles cost. Not identifying them as such, when not everyone knows that black truffles are out of season, feels a bit deceptive.

But she brings over a basket of them, and they're beautiful and fragrant, so I go for it.

Though not before ordering an appetizer special: slipper lobster tails with a Parmesan fondue, warm potato salad, microgreens, truffle vinaigrette and truffles shaved table-side.

I always love the show of a server or chef shaving truffles over a dish, and at Wilson it doesn't disappoint: Here they come fluttering down over the lobster tails; here they come over the pasta. They drift onto the plates so prettily, making everything taste wonderful — especially that house-made tagliolini.

One of my party has slow-roasted pork with African spices and fresh corn polenta with cherry sauce, another has Jidori chicken with delicious wasabi mashed potatoes, a third has baked wild Alaskan king salmon. But everyone wants in on the summer truffle tagliolini.

Who can blame them?

*

Wilson

Where: 8631 E. Washington Blvd., Culver City

When: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Sundays. Street parking.

Price: Lunch: appetizers, $10-$16; sandwiches, $13-$18; lunch plates and pastas, $13-$35; desserts, $8-$10. Dinner: appetizers, $10-$16; main courses and pastas, $16-$35; desserts, $8-$12.

Info: (310) 287-2093