Restaurant review: Alu Wine Bar and Lounge

You wouldn't expect to find a Victorian-style house on burly Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and you certainly wouldn't expect to enter through a double-width aluminum door that pivots in the center and makes you think of a secret portal.

Nor could you anticipate the dark, cozy lounge -- a brick-walled cave, really -- with settees, fringed lamps and an interior window behind which sits a sculptural composition of vases and various bibelots.

Is this the place where the revolution will start, or have you stumbled into Alice's party?

At Alu, the kitchen delivers its own beguilement.

Take a platter of roasted carrots rubbed with coriander and anchovies and drizzled with olive oil. They are so sublime that if Bugs Bunny could try them he'd never munch on a raw one again. Or consider a glass jar filled with homemade pork rillette as good as any I've had in Paris -- a moist, smooth mixture rich with delicious fat, spreadable on the accompanying baguette, punched with intense flavor and flecked with paper-thin slices of radish.

Each is more than worth the price of admission, if you needed a ticket to this realm.

Alu (French slang for aluminum, a nod to the restaurant's exterior styling) does best with appetizers. Smoked trout (enhanced by pear mostarda) rates, as do small, satiny pieces of smoked salmon accompanied by crème fraiche flavored with a dash of aquavit. Both plates of fish come with a handful of lavash, the addictive Armenian cracker bread, also made in house. For a sweet winter salad high, Alu serves a cluster of frisée speckled with duck prosciutto and dotted with, of all things, spiced dry cherries and candied pistachios.

Alu is a good example of a neighborhood bistro, backed by a sound wine list befitting a place that's as much wine bar as restaurant.

Though little about the restaurant will transform Portland's food scene, an evening here makes for quietly serious and surprisingly enjoyable dining. As a result, I'm keeping my eyes on the earnest young chef, Sean Temple, who has put in stints at Jean Georges in New York and Paley's Place locally. He's well trained, and from his tiny kitchen he's sending out some fine dishes, even a couple that are exceptional.

The menu itself tends to the cutesy categories seen all too frequently these days: "In House Love" and "In Between Bread." Another one, "Light to Hearty," is a misnomer since all the dishes are, if not strictly "light," relatively small. Not miniscule by any means, though you'll probably never need a doggie bag.

Some diners might find the swerve from standard beef, pork, chicken and lamb dishes refreshing; others, not. In its flight from the expected the restaurant delivers such uncommon dishes as a warm confit of duck salad with plump, deliciously braised gizzards; gnocchi filled with pumpkin purée and splashed with sherry maple cream; and crepinettes (not little crepes, but sausage patties wrapped in caul) made from ground rabbit meat and chanterelles.

The savory bites are one of several instances where a hungry diner might wish for a heartier portion. Though it's a visual treat to see stalks of white asparagus accompanying three scallops, for a minimalist plate of glacial purity, interrupted only by a punctuation of red cranberry and elderflower sauce, the nicely seared scallops are very good. I craved a fourth and fifth. Scallops can be rich, true. But I thought of Shakespeare's wonderful characterization of Cleopatra: "She makes hungry where most she satisfies."

It's possible to enjoy dinner on the main level, served on low-slung tables and sitting a bit awkwardly in a high-backed armchair. But if that makes you feel too much like Queen Victoria, move to the second floor, where things are more orthodox, but only a tad more so.

At Alu, the delightful surprises seemingly never end: tables made from upside-down wine racks, a gold-leaf ceiling, chandeliers more at home in a 19th-century drawing room oddly jangling with heavy metal and Michael Jackson on the sound system, and, at the landing, a gas fireplace tucked high up in the wall behind a pane of glass, like a sculpture of incandescent fire. Alu is an oxymoron: rough beams for rusticity and blood-red-flocked wallpaper in the restroom for a stab at elegance.

As with the menu generally, the choice of desserts is limited, and they are decidedly the weak link. Aside from a fairly interesting cheese plate, there are only two sweets: The almond cake and a terrine of chocolate are decent enough, but both tend to dryness despite a sauce of whisky-infused caramel in the first case and molasses in the second.

The waiters are snappy and fun, well-informed, cheerful even when the proceedings are hectic. My favorite touch at Alu: Little tags on the stem of each wine glass detail the wine, its producer and vintage, with a place for your own comments. Keep them and you can pretend you're Robert Parker.

There aren't many menu offerings, and a table of five ordering generously could exhaust the menu in a single go. Since Alu is a pleasant place with a sense of modest adventure and a commitment to making everything from scratch, I look forward to a menu change simply to expand the possibilities of my hedonism.

Summing up:
 
Grade: B

Cuisine and scene: A wine bar with a dedicated kitchen serving French, Italian and American bistro dishes. A small dining room upstairs and a lounge down, filled with Victorian couches and lamps.

Recommended: Pork rillette, smoked trout, roasted carrots, sea scallops

Vegetarian friendly? A couple of salads, a pasta, a side of carrots

Sound level: Can be noisy when groups gather

Beverages: A splendid cocktail list and a number of well-chosen wines by the glass from small producers, with a wine tag on each stem for tracking and note-keeping

Price range: Appetizers $3-$9, entrees $12-$19, cheese selection $15, desserts $8

Extras: Reservations only for 10 or more and only for downstairs; credit cards; on-street parking; handicap entrance

Serving: dinner Monday-Saturday

More info: 2831 N.E. MLK Jr. Blvd.; 503-262-9463, aluwinebar.com