CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

The high-end izakaya finally opens to the public.

By S. Irene Virbila, Times Staff Writer

Just about anyone who drives La Cienega Boulevard every day can't help but note the new Japanese restaurant on the site of the old Ed Debevic's diner. Gonpachi — the first U.S. restaurant from the well-known Japanese chain owned by Global-Dining Inc., which also owns Monsoon and La Bohème here — had been under construction for close to three years before the high-end izakaya, or "drinking house," finally opened to the public earlier this month.

It's a beautiful restaurant built with meticulous craftsmanship at a cost of about $6 million. Its low-key presence on restaurant row makes almost everything else there look like a Las Vegas extravaganza. Instead of going for the glitz, the owners have incorporated 300-year-old houses that were disassembled and brought over from Japan to be used in the design.

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You enter through a moon gate into a lovely courtyard with a stream shaded by Japanese maples. The bar is to the right, but what first captures your attention is the glassed-in room near the entrance, where a master soba chef rolls out the supple buckwheat dough and, using a special knife, cuts it into fine strands.

The restaurant is built on several levels around the courtyard garden. There's a big double-story room looking onto the charcoal grills where chefs cook tidbits on skewers. There's a sushi bar, and a sake tasting room too. Upstairs are a series of private nooks, and around the corner, semiprivate dining rooms that look onto the garden. Throughout the restaurant, fine woods, carved details and painted scrolls give Gonpachi a serenity and elegance unusual for Los Angeles Japanese restaurants.

The menu is mostly small dishes — salads, grilled things, tempura, sushi. I love the creamy, chilled zaru tofu presented in a bamboo basket, and the crunchy mix of burdock and lotus root perfumed with togarashi seasoning and sesame oil. There are shrimp fritters (good) and potato and cheese croquettes with Worcestershire sauce (odd), along with a marinated black cod with braised Japanese eggplant (terrific). The most unusual item has to be the braised octopus with green olives and taro, which I liked.

You can expect tempura with a light, lacy batter, and tasty little skewers from the charcoal grill — asparagus wrapped in bacon, okra, beef tongue, shiitake or oyster mushrooms, lamb rib-eye and corn on the cob. The sushi I had was perfectly respectable, but not on a level with the best places in town. Anyway, that's the least interesting part of the menu: Sushi, you can find anywhere.

But not handmade soba like this. Gonpachi's chef even grinds his own buckwheat for the noodles. The best way to appreciate their texture and flavor is to have them served cold with a little wasabi and the traditional dipping sauce. Or, for a few dollars more, you can add some tempura.

Come hot weather, I know I'll be back for the soba and a Japanese beer, enjoyed in view of Gonpachi's garden oasis.

virbila@latimes.com

Gonpachi

Where: 134 N. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: 5-10:30 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 5-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 5-10 p.m. Sundays. Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Appetizers, $3-$25; salads, $8.50-$10; soba, $7-$12; tempura, $3-$15; sumiyaki, $3-$10; sushi combinations, $13.50-$25

Info: (310) 659-8887