Rauxa

The reign of Spain steers mainly toward the plain

Dining Out by Stephen Heuser

Rauxa (617) 623-9939 Open Sun-Thurs, 6-10 p.m., and Fri and Sat, 6-11 p.m. Full bar AE, DC, Disc, MC, Visa Smoking at bar Access via lift and elevator

Spanish food, for all its virtues, has never been one of the great sexy import cuisines. With its sharp Mediterranean flavor palette and its emphasis on seafood, it seems a natural for American eaters in the '90s, but there have never been more than a handful of Spanish restaurants around Boston. And there definitely hasn't been what you'd call a New Spanish restaurant, the kind of place that rearranges the flavors and ideas of Spanish food, the vinegar and pimentos and shellfish, in the highfalutin way that appeals to the sort of customer who pays $20 for an entrée.

This seems to be the idea behind Rauxa. Its chef/owner, Jim Becker, started in the restaurant business mid-career. He learned a trick or two about fancifying humble food as a cook at Biba; learned to arrange shellfish in a flowerpot at Rustica, in Belmont; and now has opened a playful but expensive Iberian experiment in the Somerville space occupied until last fall by the Elephant Walk.

The space -- well, the space is a story in itself. The Elephant Walk occupied a cavelike series of sub-ground-level rooms that inspired either affection or discomfiture in diners for their rough-edged coziness. Becker's plan has a more open feel, with tables spread more thinly and walls painted mustard yellow; he has installed lattice-backed patio chairs and a few fresco-like paintings and generally has aired the place out. The effect is odd. You can't quite air out a space with no windows, and the result is like eating in the basement of someone with a thing for tile. The walls are concrete, with corners chipped off here and there (and painted metallic); a capped pipe emerges from a wall and juts over the surface of one table.

I would still say Rauxa has charm; its cozy bar, for instance, is already one of the hippest spots in Somerville to be caught sipping sherry. It also has enthusiastic waiters, an entertaining (and not terribly expensive) sherry menu, and enough of a crowd already that on a recent Wednesday night, two of us encountered a 45-minute wait for a table. The wait isn't really such an issue, since Rauxa -- unlike its nearby Spanish counterpart, the classically kitschy Dalí -- does take reservations. Viva Rauxa!

Rauxa could be doing a little better on the food front, though. Spanish food is pungent and garlicky and generally has lots of qualities that make it unnecessary to "deconstruct," at least if you're trying to sharpen it up. Though we had some nice dishes, the extra thinking that was going into them didn't quite seem to pay off.

For instance, the garlic soup ($7) is a very attractive idea that didn't hold together the night we tried it. The classic version is a thick, smooth purée of garlic and soggy bread (it's better than it sounds). This one was much brothier, with a pair of open littleneck clams in the bowl; garlic was present in generous slices, but the flavor was cooked out entirely, and the only thing we could taste was a sweet marjoram so powerful the effect was almost soapy. A salad -- er, "Xató" -- of bitter greens ($7) was profuse and slathered with a bright-orange dressing of ground nuts and chili pepper; so far, okay, but I was perplexed by the addition of high-quality rare tuna sliced alongside. Tuna is a very delicate flavor, and it seemed a shame to serve such good fish with such a strongly flavored dressing.

I don't mean to give the impression that the whole menu consisted of erratic shots, because some of it was very good. A "tasting plate" ($12) -- essentially a large plate of items that might be served as tapas elsewhere -- turned out well, a tableau of piquant little treats like plump white anchovies, stalks of white asparagus, and roasted red peppers stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in cured ham. There was plenty for two people to share. Another appetizer of foie gras and apples, at $12, may have been expensive for a single gesture, but by foie gras standards it was a downright bargain (you usually pay $15 to $18 for a foie gras appetizer, in my experience). A whole, tender goose liver was perched on a layered "sandwich" of seared apple, poached figs, more seared apple, and then a bit of greenery. A lucent brown sauce, which the menu describes as a reduction of cider and sherry, cloaked the whole thing in a rich sweetness that only something as deep as foie gras can stand up to.

The sweet thing carried over to a pork-chop entrée ($19) in which an excellent double-thick chop, grilled with those perfect little cross-hatchings on top, nestled on a bed of caramelized onions. The sides of garlicky braised greens and a chalky taro-root purée were interesting, but the quality of the meat, and its salty-moist interior, carried the day. Another dish where simplicity paid off was the roasted half chicken ($16), which had tender flesh under a puckered, crispy skin, all flavored by the aromatic bouquet of thyme stuffed into the meat during the cooking.

A pair of seafood dishes demonstrated both the risks and the rewards of repackaging the classics. On the clever side, a plate called "Cod Two Ways" ($19) showed off two guises of the fish that drew Iberian fishermen to the banks of the New World long before any pilgrims had set foot here. One version, a fillet dredged in flour and pan-seared, was familiarly white and flaky; the other, a hash (or "brandada") of cod, potato, and roasted garlic, was evocative of the reconstituted salt cod that fishermen have been ferrying across the North Atlantic for centuries.

But I was puzzled by something called a "toasted pasta 'rossejat' " ($22), in which cappellini were broken into bits and apparently cooked in oil and lobster broth, then served with lobster meat. The dish was chromatically arresting -- golden pasta and a bright-red lobster carapace served in a glossy black bowl -- but apart from the sliced lobster, it was too heavy and oily to eat more than a few bites of. We mentioned to our waiter that it was a little on the rich side, and he nodded. "I haven't seen anyone finish it yet," he told us, as though that were a good thing.

Desserts, with one exception, were evidence of the same slightly muddled classicism: a flanlike dessert called "crema cremada" ($6) was nicely prepared, with a brûlée-style surface and a pile of stewed quince on top, but the sliced apples inside the custard were maybe more than it needed. We liked the plate of nutty Catalan cookies ($6), with a couple of biscotti and some excellent coconut cookies, though the nougat ice cream served alongside didn't have much going for it besides an interesting roasty flavor. The "postre de music," though -- now that was an interesting dessert, a small tart of almonds and pine nuts, like a high-end pecan pie; included in the $7 price was a glass of rich Lustau montilla, a fortified wine like a sweet, deep-umber sherry.

Wine, in fact, was one of the pleasures of Rauxa. Spanish wines still aren't all that well represented on most local wine lists, especially Spanish whites. We had a glass of really excellent white Rioja, a Graviona ($7.50), which was on the expensive end for this list, but had fruit and excellent structure to match the vividly flavored food. And the list of sherries -- all served by the glass -- makes the evening that much more fun. If Rauxa's menu suffers a bit from lack of focus, one way to get around that would be to diversify a little bit, maybe spin some of those strong, clear flavors and relishes into a series of winning tapas. Pair that with the sherry list, and you'd have a bar menu worth a visit to Union Square in itself.

Stephen Heuser can be reached at sheuser[a]phx.com.

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