Square Meals

“How’s the ostrich?’ asks my friend Tyrone, scanning the menu at Boxer. “I heard it was supposed to taste like beef and be good for you, too.’ I roll my eyes, knowing he almost always orders steak.

“It’s cooked rare, thinly sliced, very tender,’ the young waiter answers. And Ty, to my surprise, goes for it. How the mighty have fallen.

Then it’s my turn. “What about the rosemary-rubbed pork tenderloin?’ “Get the duck,’ the waiter replies. When I murmur that I’m considering the filet of beef, he repeats: “Get the duck.’

So I do. I trust an opinionated waiter over one who insists everything is fabulous. With another of my dining companions, the waiter counsels enthusiastically: “Definitely the whitefish!’

He doesn’t need to work so hard to convince us, though, because Boxer, a sleeper when it opened in 1995, is now a bona fide hit. It’s got a great location on a quirky block of Beverly Boulevard. Clever design has transformed a boxy space with a huge wood-burning stone oven into a stark, stylish interior with wood banquettes and box-shaped lamps. Boxes and squares are the design motif throughout.

While New York is full of adventurous storefront restaurants, L.A.’s smart neighborhood bistros are few and far between, which is why this one is so special. Not much money went into this place, but a lot of heart did. Neal Fraser, who cooked at Rox and Checkers before opening Boxer, has created an idiosyncratic menu that mixes French, California, Italian and Asian cuisines with more sense than most.

Playing to a young audience, he uses strong flavors. Instead of the olive oil or tapenade, for example, he offers a crock of roasted garlic. Sticky, almost caramelized, it’s delicious spread on crusty French bread.

This summer, Fraser is making a chilled cucumber basil soup that tastes like a particularly graceful gazpacho. A tangy warm goat and blue cheese tart, adorned with endive and candied walnuts, is lovely, too. And there’s a terrific diced tuna tartare with seaweed strands perfumed with sesame oil; it comes with two intriguing sauces: a sweet-hot Japanese mustard and a pale green shiso and herb sauce.

But the Boxer salad--layers of diced tomatoes, green beans, beets and avocado with a fluff of greens on top, turned out of a square mold--needs a more distinctive dressing if you’re not going to lose interest halfway through. A green salad garnished with a “tower’ of phyllo also doesn’t quite work. The pastry sometimes isn’t crisp, and the goat cheese filling is gooey. More successful is the Caesar salad with whole roasted garlic cloves.

I would urge everyone to try the whole lamb shanks, braised until the meat is falling off the bones and served in rosemary-infused juices. Not that the duck isn’t good. It is: sliced magret in a honey-soy glaze, served on baby bok choy and a risotto cake woven with threads of carrot.

Tyrone’s ostrich is medallions of beautifully cooked and tender meat, marinated in soy to enhance the taste. But the kitchen needs to work on its spaetzle. The pale, floury squiggles don’t have the right shape or texture. Whitefish, though, is crisp yet moist and served on a bed of pearl pasta, asparagus and morels doused in mushroom broth.

Pastry chef Angela Hunter makes an impression with desserts such as warm molten chocolate cake with pink peppermint syrup. This season, she’s also making a plum soup studded with plums, blackberries and a ball of plum sorbet. A napoleon of hard chocolate cookies and espresso ice cream, however, is impossible to eat without using your knife as a machete.

Boxer isn’t licensed to sell wine and beer, so Fraser opened Bicentennial 13 next door to provide interesting wines and microbrewery beers. The whites, such as Dehlinger Chardonnay and Coudoulet de Beaucastel Blanc, are already chilled. If you buy a bottle there, Boxer doesn’t charge a corkage fee. And even if you bring your own, the fee is only $5.

Should you want to see what a young chef and his enthusiastic, equally young team can do with a small kitchen and a storefront, take a look at Boxer’s imaginative cooking and friendly service. It’s fledgling restaurants like this, opened on a shoestring, that can dare to be different.

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BOXER

CUISINE: California eclectic. AMBIENCE: Stylish storefront with charming waiters. BEST DISHES: Cucumber basil soup, cheese tart, tuna tartare, duck, lamb shanks, ostrich, plum soup. FACTS: 7615 W. Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; (213) 932-6178. Closed Monday. Dinner for two, food only, $60 to $90. Corkage $5.