January 15, 2003

By Paul Reidinger

LET US NOW praise Alfred Schilling, chocolatier and haute-cuisine impresario, not for his chocolates or his haute cuisine – though both are eminently praiseworthy, as we shall see – but his absolutely eerie knack for finding surreal, even campy spaces in which to stage his uniquely combinatorial performances of whimsy and seriousness.

The original Alfred Schilling restaurant (closed last year) occupied a soundstage-like space on Market Street just east of the 101 overpass. The front of the space was a wonderland of chocolate truffles in glass cases, but for the dinner-minded there were tables toward the rear, in a stark, concrete-floored alcove rich in the atmosphere of improvisation, not to mention cold air. To ward off the chill, Schilling offered fancy and sometimes eccentric food (I seem to recall a chocolate pasta, part of a multicourse Willy Wonka-theme menu in which every dish contained chocolate in some form) at fairly modest cost.

The reborn Alfred Schilling occupies a prime North Beach site that resembles the old one not at all except in its extravagant peculiarity. From the outside the new building (at the corner of Broadway and Columbus) looks rather official – lots of high windows on a formal façade – but it was once upon a time a fast-food outlet and has been made over inside to resemble the set of a John Waters movie. Because the building is shaped like a fat slice of cake, there are odd nooks and crannies and half-levels here and there, and a mezzanine; and the furniture, much of it Day-Glo pink, exhales the glorious fumes of 1970s cheesiness. Yet the tables are laid with crisply ironed tablecloths, handsome flatware, and an abundance of wine glasses, which might lead us to think that the restaurant was seriously schizophrenic if we did not know from experience that Schilling knows when to strike camp, or the camp, and get down to business.

The business is food, and the food is stylish. The menu consists of small plates; these cost, generally speaking, from about $6 to about $12, are bigger than appetizers though smaller than main courses at other restaurants, and in their artful variety offer what is essentially a do-it-yourself tasting menu. Of course one of the pleasures of a traditional tasting menu is being relieved of the burden of having to choose anything, whereas the Schilling way does require you to supply psychic energy for deciding what to have. But the evidence we gathered, though not exhaustive, suggests that whatever choice you make is likely to be more than satisfactory, so the psychic burden of choosing is less than it might appear.

For damp, chilled people on a hot-pink mezzanine, soup was in order, and while the prospect of cream soups usually gives me a shiver (calories, richness), Schilling's cream of celery ($6) was well seasoned, not too rich, and drizzled with an olive puree whose muted bite cut nicely through the fattiness of all that cream.

Schilling's food does not lend itself to description in our usual ethnic vocabulary. Some dishes seem plainly Mediterranean, such as cannelloni ($8.50) stuffed with minced eggplant and goat cheese and napped with tomato sauce and translucent basil oil. Others reflect a Eurasian fusion sensibility – for instance, a mushroom pyramid ($10.50), a geometrical set of pastry planes enclosing diced wild mushrooms and sauced with a spicy coconut-peanut potion.

But what about a buckwheat crab crepe ($12), with a lemon saffron emulsion and mixed greens? Or a mahimahi filet ($12) marinated in vanilla and served with spaetzle au fromage blanc and poached garlic sauce? Unexpected and ethereal combinations. We returned to (European) earth with fried chicken livers ($7.50) that had been breaded for a nice golden crunch, then sauced with béarnaise and arranged atop crushed fingerling potatoes and mixed greens. This last dish offered, among other things, sly homage to the fast-food pedigree of the building.

The restaurant dimension of Alfred Schilling is like something from Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies" – an after-dark miracle that vanishes in the light of common day. While the sun shines (hypothetically speaking) the place reverts to, more or less, chocolate-shoppery, with the truffles on display (along with pastries), the espresso machine hissing away as it churns out cappuccinos and lattes, and premade sandwiches (in the $4 range) available for light lunchers. With your croissant ($2), your turkey-and-goat-cheese on whole wheat ($4.75), and your glass of sweet-sour French lemonade ($2), you can sit at one of the huge windows overlooking Columbus and watch the people and believe, for an instant, that you are sitting in one of Paris's innumerable similar cafés, possibly near Place de la Nation.

Then, in the next instant, you glance around inside and your eye is filled with hot pink and you cannot remember seeing a café done up in this style – Austin Powers and Myra Breckinridge guest starring on The Brady Bunch – in Paris or indeed anywhere, and your lips soundlessly form the only two words it is possible to think in these circumstances: Alfred Schilling. Or: yeah, baby.