Review of the Compund Restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Long gone are the days when the white gloved, penguin-suited staff of The Compound Restaurant attended to men in (required) jackets and ties - and equally appropriately - dressed ladies. However, the classic 19^th century adobe building - converted into a restaurant in the 1960s by owners Will and Barbara Houghton and designed by Alexander Girard - still shines brightly. Chef/owner Mark Kiffin - 2005 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef of the Southwest - has been manning the restaurant for six years now. He has updated the menu to suit more modern tastes, focusing his French technique - and his past experience at Mark Miller's Coyote Cafe - on satisfying an increasingly global palate. Until a few weeks ago, I had never eaten at The Compound. Knowing that a cummerbund was no longer mandatory, I ventured forward, wearing my taste buds in place of a tie.

Given the recent unpredictable weather, I thought it best to reserve a table indoors, bypassing the restaurants lovely patio. The hostess sat us immediately, and our server promptly offered us still or slightly sparkling Hildon water from England at a continuous-pour price of S3 per guest. We accepted the offer of bottled water with a nod to the ephemeral nature of Santa Fe's most precious natural resource (monsoonal floods aside).

A quick read of the dinner menu revealed Kiffin's love of foie gras and his ability to take advantage of liver's many possibilities: scared foie, terrine of foie, foie pan gravy, and even foie hollandaise. What some see as overkill, I chalk up to Kiffin's experience at The Culinary Institute of America in the 1980s; he learned early in his career that every bit of essence extracted from a single ingredient not only increases profits, it's also an opportunity to challenge one's creativity. The seared foie gras came atop sweetbreads with porcini mushrooms, cayenne pepper, and Spanish sherry.

We split the appetizer, choosing to share the indulgence with a glass (each) of Sauternes. The fruity, apricot-scented wine proved to be overpowering against the minimally seasoned foie gras and sweetbreads. While usually a textbook choice, this food and wine pairing suffered from a distinct sour note in the mushrooms preparation: here, the Spanish sherry proved too much for the mushrooms delicate flavor. (Although most Santa Fe chefs serving porcinis on their seasonal menus rely on local foragers for their bounty, our server told us that Kiffin imports an Italian product.)

Next we shared a divine bowl of stone-ground, yellow-corn polenta with Manila clams, tomato, garlic, parsley, and Montasio, an Italian cow's milk cheese. To every chef and culinary mentor I have ever worked with who strictly forbade the combination of cheese and seafood, I say Phooey. An aged Montasio cheese has a piquancy that matches well with briny shellfish and melts beautifully into an earthy, smooth polenta. The veal short-loin scaloppini served with chanterelles, buttered veal reduction, and orzo pasta with cheddar cheese was watchband- and tender; the chanterelles enhanced the veal's delicate flavor. And who could imagine that rice-sized pasta with aged cheddar could be delivered as an airy, flavorful partner to veal? Kiffin's preparation works like a charm. The house-made herb gnocchi, also with chanterelles - it is mushroom season - was served with brown butter, Parmesan cheese, haricots verts (French green beans), and tender kernels of sweet corn. We were wowed by the lightness of the gnocchi. Although we have seen more corn on local menus as its peak season approaches, the gnocchi didn't need the additional starch or sweetness. Still, it was another memorable dish.

We requested some help with wine selections for our entrees, and the service staff was happy to oblige. With their help, we chose one glass of French rose and one of pinot noir, and both proved to be wonderful pairings. The wine service here is thankfully free of snobbery, and, even though the list changes regularly, there is always something here for every palate and pocketbook, with some selections coining in at $9 per glass. A plum-blueberry tart with orange cream-cheese filling, local wildflower honey, and plum coulis was less successful. The blueberries were plump and tart - and much too strong for the delicate honey drizzle. The crust, a crisp, circular pate sucree (a dense, sweet dough) provided fantastic texture to the dessert. The orange crème was enjoyable, but again killed the honey. Dinner on the whole was a pleasant experience, even if at times we found some ingredients struggling to rise to the promise of their menu description. The service was well-informed, friendly, and unobtrusive, and Kiffin made regular rounds of the dining room to gauge the evening's progress.

A Saturday lunch on The Compounds patio unfolded with mixed results. The weather was on our side, and I marveled at the pristine miniature roses, white gardenias, and well-trimmed vines along the patio walls. First courses and salad choices at lunch lean toward lighter fare, while entrees run the gamut from dainty to downright Hungry Man.

A salad of butter lettuce and yellow tomatoes in champagne vinaigrette is a shining example of topnotch ingredients being honored by simple preparation. But the com soup with fried okra and com relish arrived at the table with no spoon - an oversight that doesn't exactly personify top-notch service. At $9 a bowl, the spoon should be more than an afterthought. The promised corn relish turned out to be a spoonful of tasteless diced red peppers - a true letdown. The house-cured, smoked-pastrami sandwich with beer-braised onions, horseradish- mustard mayonnaise, house-baked corn-rye bread, house-made potato chips, and a half sour pickle looked quite good on paper.

Unfortunately, the heavenly pastrami was undermined by a nearly absent sauce, soggy and tasteless bread, cold onions, and unseasoned chips. To quote my dining partner, "The pickle was the best part of the meal; that's too bad."

The chicken schnitzel with lemon-caper butter and sautéed spinach fared much better. A thinly pounded, golden brown, panko (Japanese bread crumb) coated chicken breast the length of a VHS tape arrived still sizzling and tender. The spinach was grit-free and perfectly salted. The accompanying caper butter sauce was piquant and not too rich. The chicken breast was completely unseasoned, but I was thankful: the sauce was salty enough. Our initial order of a glass each of Chablis and sauvignon Blanc was presented in miniature carafes and then poured into glasses, tableside. While it does little for presentation, it ensures an honest pour from the staff- and usually puts paranoid beverage managers at ease. A bottle of Stella Artois, a Belgian-style beer, had the appropriate depth to complement smoked meats.

I took a bittersweet chocolate tone with crème fraiche to go. Neither a dense, flourless slab, nor a bland, air-fluffed cake, this dessert is an indulgence worth the price tag. It beats the pants off of the ubiquitous liquid center chocolate cakes that most restaurants serve straight from a freezer and pass off as their own. The Compound Restaurant is located at 653 Canyon Road, 982-4353.