Brentwood Magazine Review of Moonshadows Restaurant

MOONSHADOWS
by Bradley Tuck

On occasion, I marvel that Malibu exists at all, its equilibrium seems to me to be precarious. Toes dug stubbornly into the sand, it's as if the collective dreams and expectations of an entire country are pressing up against it, the weight of the success-hungry hordes pushing ever westward, threatening to tip it from its stilts onto the rocks below. Tenacity is, of course, that most prized of American virtues. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. Which brings us rather neatly to Moonshadows restaurant in Malibu. Moonshadows is one of those rare places in this town that seems to have always been here. Passing it some seven years ago, my curiosity was piqued only enough to make me wonder which came first; the restaurant or the Cat Stevens song. It's exterior demeanor did nothing to entice one in to dine. I had the feeling that 'the times they were a changin' for the place when a friend told me that Sunday afternoons there were, to coin a phrase “off the hook.”

Moonshadows, she said, was where it was at. The hottest DJs in town, playing music for the hottest crowd in town. I politely declined the opportunity to mingle with a crowd who would always have more money, more hair, and fewer wrinkles than me. Passing by one Sunday soon after, enviously eyeing up the crowd, I was alarmed to see people darting in and out of the traffic on PCH, running up the center line of the road, faces etched with grim determination and an obviously unwavering belief in the pedestrian having right-of-way laws. Peeling my hands away from my eyes, I noticed that the contestants in this particular game of chicken were parking valets. The finish tape in this death defying relay race was a large group of tanned and svelte 20-something women. After calculating that the square footage of the fabric used to construct their clothes would barely be enough to actually construct the aforementioned finish tape, I noticed the fetching new livery of he restaurant itself. What had once looked like a 1970s chemistry teacher's denim satchel now resembled a yacht club in the south of France. Crisp cream woodwork bounced the famous Malibu light against white canvas awnings that fluttered in the afternoon breeze. Suddenly it all began to make perfect sense.

So, when I was invited recently to dine there, I took all of three seconds to check my schedule and accept. On arriving inside the restaurant, we were ushered into the warm embrace of the dining room. A wall of windows sloping out toward the ocean gives one the impression of being on a well appointed yacht. A very large yacht. Lighting inside is warm and just bright enough to read the menu, which is as it should be. Lighting outside illuminates the waves crashing on the rocks directly below, and most surreally lights up the seagulls whizzing past outside. I fully expected one to crash through the window and cheekily grab a bread roll.

In 2003, Chef Joachim Weritz and Managing Partner Andrea Bullo took the helm of the restaurant. Weritz's previous experience as chef and owner includes working in notable restaurants in Rome, Florence, and New York, as well as two years at the renowned Patina catering in Los Angeles. Weritz has taken these experiences and, inspired by the dramatic location of the restaurant and California's benign climate, created a menu that truly deserves the title “Haute Cuisine.” Weritz describes the menu as “contemporary American cuisine, with Asian and Mediterranean influences,” but that hardly begins to describe the care and attention to detail that has gone into the food and the efficient, well chosen wine list. This list is by no means tiny, but Bullo says they lack the storage space to carry as large a selection as the might like.

My friend and I started with a sashimi of Japanese Ono, with a persimmon-blood orange vinaigrette and yuzu infused cucumber. As a nod to both west and east, it was impressive. The velvety sashimi was tickled by the perky tartness of the vinaigrette, and the cucumber provided a satisfying crunch. A Bott-Geyl Alsace Pinot Blanc 2001 suggested by Signor Bullo was as light and refreshing as the food.

A seafood sampler plate provided of the loveliest surprises of the meal. A New England 'Quahog' clam chowder – for which clams are flown in daily from the East Coast – yielded up a crisp whiff of celery. One almost expected it to be crunchy, but it instead embraced the tongue with a warm, comforting creaminess, the basso of the soft potato a raft for the tender chewiness of the clams and the ever present celery top notes. Lovely.

I'm a pushover for a really good soup, and a little stew of manila clams, chorizo and chipotle was no disappointment. The fiery heat of the broth was fine companion to the satisfying, sweet meatiness of the clams nestling in it. The perfectly sized bites of chorizo added the right textural contrast and a complimentary heartiness. Accompanied by a lightly chilled Spanish wine, Proyecto 4, as its name suggests, a blend of four types of grapes, it all felt modern, to the point and satisfying. I was grateful for the warm dinner rolls on the table, as they gave me a perfect excuse to mop the very last of the sauce from the bowl. Similarly satisfying, was an oxtail and winter mushroom soup, the rich dense fungi as meaty as the oxtail itself. Who says we don't have seasons in California? It made me wish it was raining.

Weritz says that there is an emphasis in his menu on seafood, and indeed there are abundant choices. I was particularly taken with the robust pungency of his Moonshadows bouillabaisse, a dish that too often misses the point outside the south France. Here, a tender hunk of monkfish rubbed gills with a huge Santa Barbara prawn and a New Zealand Green lip mussel, creating a pleasantly powerful and well-balanced flavor, the ensemble set off nicely with a superb dollop of rouille. Weritz is passionate about serving a superior quality of fish and often calls distant locales such as Hawaii directly, to order lesser-known fish such as kajiki and hebi, a Hawaiian spearfish.

When a chef goes to so much trouble, it seems to me churlish not try it, so I had the Hebi which was the special of the day. It was served pan-seared medium rare and drizzled with mild sweet soy-ginger glaze, accompanied by fragrant matcha green tea rice, braised bok chow and shitake mushrooms. The hebi was extraordinarily delicate in texture, moist and flavorful. The shitake served with it was fragrant and heady.

Signor Bullo suggested a succinct, minerally Chablis, Vocoret 2001. It made me decide to hunt out a Chablis more often on wine lists. One can only take so much of the buttery, flabby Chardonnays that are so often on offer in restaurants.

Having waxed lyrical about the quality of the fish at Moonshadows, I have to say some of the meat dishes I tried gave the fish something to think about. Sake braised short rib of Kobe beef was as tender as a fist date kiss, and perfectly set off by a swathe of creamy stone ground grits, Chinese mustard greens and house pickled beets. The bright beets poked beautifully through the tongue coating richness of the beef and grits, leaving one ready to tackle dessert. A soft but well structured Cabernet Sauvignon, Symmetry (Alexander Valley) 1999 nicely echoed the dish.

Valrhona make arguably the best chocolate in the world. Weritz employs it with panache in his chocolate soufflé cake with gianduja, coffee sauce, and hazelnut ice cream. A crust as crisp but delicate as a hummingbird's eggshell gives way to a fluffy molten chocolate center. A Fuji apple pie came with a crumbly crust and a dollop of rum raisin ice cream. Excellent. Now we're stuffed.

On the way home, as we negotiated the dark ribbon of PCH, my friend and I discussed our meal with great relish. As good as all the food was, there was for us one eureka moment. Tired from a long day's work and the drive to the restaurant, one of our first courses was a Kumamoto oyster with a splash of ponzu mignonette, and a blob of sevruga caviar. Pearls before brine. Gulping this down jolted us both awake. It was like diving into the ocean and getting that first delicious mouthful of chilly surf and snorting a lung full of bracing sea air all at once. Now, isn't that what Malibu is all about?