A new brigade comes to a neighborhood’s rescue

As early as 1909, the Edendale area of what is now called Silver Lake was home to movie studios that churned out silent films -- everything from Keystone Kops flicks and westerns to three-handkerchief matinee fare -- with the surrounding hills as ready-made scenery. In the ‘20s Tom Mix built his Mixville Studio just blocks away from where the Edendale Grill now stands.

The owners, Melanie Tusquellas and Patti Peck, spent more than two years meticulously restoring the building, an abandoned 1924 firehouse. While you wait for your table, it’s fascinating to browse through their little gallery of black-and-white studio shots of Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin, Dorothy Gish, Laurel & Hardy and other silent film legends shooting pictures on location in the neighborhood.

One great old photo depicts a troop of firefighters from L.A. Fire Department Station 56, smart in their brass-buttoned uniforms, standing in front of their shiny 1920s firetruck. The long bay where they parked it is now the Mixville bar. The expansive mahogany bar can seat 20 or more, and it’s anchored on either end with club chairs and a big comfy sofa. The scene is so wonderfully convivial, you may want to stop and eat in the bar, rather than just pass on through to the dining room.

The Grill’s Arts and Crafts-style dining room is populated with an eclectic Silver Lake crowd, too, one you’d never mistake for the Westside. And it’s a big part of Edendale Grill’s appeal. Over the course of three or four visits, I must have run into everybody I know in Silver Lake. The neighborhood is desperate for restaurants, and it has rushed to embrace this one. And with its moderate prices (all the entrees, except lamb chops and filet mignon, are under $20), late hours and engaging atmosphere, Edendale Grill just about fills the bill. It’s not necessarily a romantic date restaurant, but more of a place to go with friends, taking over one of the big booths or a round table in the middle of the room. Somehow it reminds me of San Francisco. Maybe it was the plaid flannel shirts a number of guests were wearing the last time I was there.

Tables are set with pretty china trimmed in gold, and heavy, old-fashioned glass salt and pepper shakers. The food is just as substantial and slightly retro: American in the comfort-food vein. Peck has a neighborhood pedigree. She was an owner of Silver Lake’s beloved Millie’s, where she turned out delicious, hearty breakfasts. Her partner, Tusquellas, comes from the family that owns Tusquellas’ Seafood in the Fairfax Farmers Market and has managed her dad’s three L.A. restaurants.

Before you do anything else, put in an order of the shaggy hand-battered onion rings for the table. Fried to a pale gold and presented with a chunky jalapeno ketchup, they’re obligatory. If crab cakes are a measure of a restaurant, though, Edendale’s are enigmatic. They arrive looking like artifacts from Alice’s dinner in Wonderland -- after she ate the pill that shrank her, that is. The three crab cakes are almost pure crab, but they’re each the size of a fat silver dollar. One night they’re practically burnt, another they’re barely warm, but they come with a spunky tequila lime sauce

Peck has a way with salads, though. Everybody has a market greens salad, but hers is dressed in a light honey apple cider vinaigrette and topped with a handful of very cold fresh peas in a very green Green Goddess dressing. Her twist on Waldorf salad is a fluffy salad of greens tossed in a lemony dressing with sliced Black Arkansas apples, walnuts, and crowning the whole, julienned celery root. There’s also a Caesar salad for two, made tableside, though if you’re not paying attention, the server will just quietly make the whole thing without drawing attention to herself. The dressing has a quiet punch of anchovies and garlic, but the lettuce is unevenly dressed. “Didn’t toss it enough,” said the 20-year-old amateur food critic at my table.

Corn in January

Corn chowder is quite respectable one night, but a few weeks later, it tastes as if it’s made with canned creamed corn. By January, doesn’t it make sense to take that particular item off the menu and introduce something more seasonal?

The menu, in fact, changes very little from week to week. Even the vegetables stay the same. I love the glazed carrots, but does almost every entree have to come with them and either wild rice pilaf or Yukon gold mashed potatoes? I can’t decide if the kitchen is just lazy or lacks imagination. But if you’re designing a restaurant for the neighborhood and want people to come back again and again, it seems smart to vary the menu, or at least some of the menu, more.

Most nights there are just one or two specials. One night it’s pot roast, which the server announces with such enthusiasm, she sounds like a pot roast spokeswoman, but it’s probably that she’s just so glad to have something new to propose. The beef itself is tasty enough, but it’s been cooked with so much tomato -- tomatoes, paste and sun-dried tomato -- it seems more like beef in marinara sauce than a true pot roast. But those juices are awfully good ladled over freshly mashed potatoes. The garnish is two green beans.

Two green beans grace the Colorado lamb chops, too, oddly enough. The thick tender chops have a good flavor, and they’re expertly charbroiled. The kitchen does have that down. But a hickory smoked pork rib chop with cranberry chutney is too dry.

The best steak is the thick 8-ounce prime flatiron, which can be ordered with either blue cheese butter or horseradish cream. The latter, pungent with fresh horseradish, is the winner. At our table there is some discussion over what medium rare is in America after my young British friend’s father cautions him that medium rare here is more cooked than in England. So we decide to put the order in as rare “plus.” And it comes out just right: warm red at the center.

*

Calling Emeril

Idaho trout arrives opened like a book, with a single slice of crisped bacon on top of each filet. Nothing wrong with it, but it gets boring after a few bites. The better choice is the Creole seafood gumbo. I like the down-home taste of “dirty rice” drowned in a gumbo of crab and shrimp, and, if you like, fresh oysters. It’s as thick as porridge, but awfully timid. I’m actually tempted to prescribe Emeril’s mantra: Kick it up a notch.

Of course, the Edendale Grill is proposing reasonably priced comfort fare and not fine dining. But even so, the cooking just isn’t very exciting. (Without getting fussy about it, the presentation could be more attractive, too.) There are hundreds of wonderful American dishes a restaurant like this could cook without having to raise prices. I wish the kitchen weren’t so limited in its ambitions.

After the main courses are cleared, the waiter presents a small tray with a flickering candle. It’s the show-and-tell dessert menu, but there are only three choices most nights. Chocolate mousse parfait served in a stemmed glass is deep and dark, and has sour cherries buried at the bottom. A slice of cinnamon-scented apple pie is warm beneath a coverlet of buttery streusel topping. And there’s also an impressively tall and magnificent-looking slice of layer cake, something rarely sighted in these parts. It’s buttery and dense, with a light, very white frosting studded with nuts.

“This is the best course,” says the young Englishman, scarfing up his “pudding.” At that moment, the disappointments of the rest of the meal have faded, and we’re having a fine time.

Firehouse No. 56 is back in a new guise, and it has all the elements to become a neighborhood fixture, save one: food that’s delicious and distinctive enough to tempt you back again and again.

*

Edendale Grill

Rating: *

Location: 2838 Rowena Ave., Silver Lake; (323) 666-2000.

Ambience: Neighborhood restaurant in restored 1924 firehouse with an Arts and Crafts-style dining room and a lively bar where the firetruck was once parked.

Service: Friendly and unpretentious, but could be more efficient and attentive.

Price: Appetizers, $5 to $8; main courses, $13 to $27; desserts, $5 to $6.

Best dishes: Hand-battered onion rings, market greens with fresh peas, Waldorf salad, tableside Caesar salad, lamb loin chops, prime flatiron steak, chocolate mousse parfait, apple pie.

Wine list: Solid and unadventurous. Corkage, $15.

Best table: The big, roomy booth on the back wall.

Special features: Outdoor patio in front for those who like a view of the street; coming this summer, dining in the courtyard in back.

Details: Open Thursday to Saturday, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.; Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 5 p.m. to midnight. Full bar. Free valet parking.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.