Zaatar's Oven

Innovative kosher fish dishes and smooth service don't always coincide

by Robert Nadeau

DINING OUT

Zaatar's Oven (617) 731-6836 242 Harvard Street (Coolidge Corner), Brookline Dinner served Sun-Thurs, 5-10 p.m. Bakery open Sun, 9 a.m.-10 p.m.; Mon-Thurs, 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; and Fri, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Beer and wine Sidewalk-level access

There is nobody named Zaatar at Zaatar's. Zaatar is a spice mixture served on flatbread at this successful Coolidge Corner bakery-cafeteria, which has now opened a new room, expanded its hours, and added table service at dinnertime. The good news is that we have some very exciting fish dishes inspired by the many cuisines of modern Israel. The bad news is that the service on a crowded Sunday night evoked the dark side of Israeli stereotypes: brusque, inefficient, and unapologetic. The move from cafeteria service to table service has apparently been rockier than a Galilee hillside.

The chef has made the kosher-dairy menu sing. Though the insistence here on strict kashrut does limit the choices of olive oils, cheeses, and wines -- and eliminates shellfish, swordfish, Friday-night dinner, and Saturdays -- you don't miss meat in Eastern Mediterranean cooking. Most of the initial customers have been observant Jews, but the food will suit anyone who can move from meat-and-potatoes to fish-and-pilaf.

The spicing here is generally mild, which both suits the fresh fish and lets the dishes that are spicy stand out. The breadbasket our night was full of triangles of focaccia, appealingly less herbal and much less oily than most. Its flavor was provided by a pour of olive oil and the eponymous zaatar -- the house version leaning more on sesame and thyme than the Arab versions you tend to find around Boston, which tend toward cumin and the sour red dried-sumac powder.

The chef's work of genius here is "merguize kabobs" ($13), an entrée using two kinds of fish, ground coriander, and magic to make a remarkable counterfeit of a typical North African lamb sausage -- maybe a little more rubbery, but with a meaty, satisfying flavor. I've never had health food stand in so convincingly for a form of temptation that depends on saturated fat.

I was also impressed with the fish dishes that tasted like fish. I ordered baby mackerels in a brown-butter sauce with capers and lemons ($12). It's not always wise to order fish on Sunday night, but the chef wisely suggested I substitute the fresher tuna. Though I like mackerel, I can't see any reason to switch back, given what a lovely dish this was with medallions of tuna.

An appetizer of "fish skewers" ($8) featured peppers and onions alternating with tuna and salmon kebabs. This came with two excellent dips: one of mild, rich sesame tahini, the other of hot red-pepper paste -- possibly the Malaysian influence of Pandan Leaf next door? "Fire-roasted tuna Niçoise" ($7) was mostly raw, in the seared-sushi mode of fashionable appetizers, but the underlying salad made this a good dish without pretenses.

The antipasto was a small symphony of roasted vegetables -- red and green peppers, eggplants, portobello mushrooms, potato slices, cherry tomatoes, with the somewhat disappointing additions of greasy croutons and bland white kosher cheese. A six-bean soup ($3) was a large, superior bowl with enough cumin and pepper to make it resemble vegetarian chili. I could tell it wasn't vegetarian chili, though, because it was richer -- and not overwhelmed with tomatoes as "vegetarian chili" always is. Fish chowder ($4) was an earthy bowl with scraps of several kinds of fish and skin-on potatoes. You'll never miss the bacon in this chowder, but you may miss the fish stock -- the broth tastes more like thyme and potato skins than fish.

The pasta of the day when we were there was fish-stuffed ravioli in a basil cream sauce ($14). This was about as good as it sounds -- obviously homemade (and somewhat orange) pasta, an unobtrusive filling, and a delightful mild sauce that didn't claim to be pesto.

Kosher restaurants are family restaurants, and Zaatar's has an attractive children's menu, and a very wise policy of serving kids' food in "adult portions" for $5 more. This option suited a couple of young teenagers in our group, who will always order macaroni and cheese or a cheese sandwich with French fries if there is any way to do so without actually ordering off the kids' menu. The cheese sandwich ($4 base price) is really a kind of quesadilla in one of Zaatar's flatbreads, and the French fries are skin-on and excellent. The mac-and-cheese is quite cheesy, with some well-deployed bread crumbs. I thought both suffered from the blandness of the kosher cheese -- but both dishes were consumed with gusto by the target audience.

The wine list is limited to Kedem labels, such as Baron Herzog (from California) and Bartenura, and without years. The limitation on kosher wine is that it has to be supervised continuously by observant Jews from crush to bottling. As a practical matter, the right kind of winemakers have to be bused in to most wine regions; this makes for a frantic four or five days between Sabbaths, and dictates short fermentation times and no barrel aging. Thus, light white and blush wines are the best picks; my favorite Baron Herzog is the beaujolais-like Gamay. We had the Bartenura '97 pinot grigio ($16), and it was a very clean quaff with seafood. You could do a lot worse with this fashionable grape. The religious laws pertain only to grape products, so the beers here -- including Maccabee from Israel -- are standard market brands.

Desserts are good, but not yet what you might expect from a bakery with a wood-fired oven. Chocolate bread pudding ($5) was the pick of the lot. It's not really pudding, but more a single slab of chocolate-swirl babka with some custard soaked in, baked in chocolate sauce. Cheesecake ($4) was good, not great, and it used obviously frozen strawberries while the restaurant was serving fresh ones (and some fresh blackberries) with whipped cream for another dessert ($4). Rugelach ($3) are buttery enough, but all three of ours were underbaked. An apple-cherry crisp ($5) was delightful. But what about the oven? I suppose an oven hot enough for flatbreads might not have a cooler corner for baked pies and puddings, but how about some fruit tarts?

The atmosphere at Zaatar's, even with the new room, is somewhat loud and all business -- people are here to eat, not to relax. Our service started out iffy and then dissolved: our waiter asked men for their orders first, lost an order of fish soup, blamed us instead of apologizing, disappeared after the appetizers, poured the wine without offering a taste, and failed to clear plates. Other staff produced one menu when asked for dessert, ran off without coffee orders, and sent a third waiter in a filthy shirt (field promotion from busperson?) to take coffee orders.

On the positive side, water was refilled well, and the kitchen did steer me from the mackerel to the tuna.

The old Zaatar's was very highly designed for a cafeteria room, and the new space extends that with its bold use of color and its shiny surfaces. It's a step down in energy from the original room, but still bright and informal.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com.

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