By day, the boulevard's serious and busy buildings speak of power and stature, but at night Sacramento's Champs-Elysées could be the set for a filmmaker shooting a scene for "The Day After the Apocalypse."

Now, however, a foursome of enterprising restaurateurs has joined Il Fornaio in trying to show Sacramentans that culinary destinations need not be limited to Fair Oaks Boulevard, J Street or Broadway.

The new place along the mall is Restaurant 55 Degrees, which opened a week and a half ago.

What to expect: The restaurant occupies up-front, ground-floor quarters of the office building Plaza Five Fifty Five.

While the office structure looms tall and wide about the restaurant, 55 Degrees holds its own, thanks in large part to its expansive glass walls. At night, from the outside, the place is lit up like a ballroom. From inside, guests get a panoramic view of neighboring high-rises, the setting sun and the fountains and greenery of the mall.

The restaurant takes its name from the optimal temperature to store wine, and wine's prominent role in setting the tone of the place is reinforced with a long, enclosed, up-lit wine vault along one side of the dining room.

The room is a bright, sleek and sturdy study in stainless steel, chrome and glass, with warmth provided by a rare orange color scheme punctuated with dashes of periwinkle blue in the covers of the menu and the shirts of the servers.

A nearly circular spirits and oyster bar at the entrance provides guests with peeks into the kitchen and an overview of the dining room.

Pedigree: The opening of 55 Degrees marks the return to the local dining scene of the husband-and-wife team of Ali Mackani and Lisa Watts, and their executive chef, Luc Dendievel. The three opened Baccaras Restaurant & Wine Bar in Folsom in 2003, but closed it earlier this year to prepare for their move to Sacramento.

A veteran of the restaurants Lucas Carton in Paris and Cintronelle in Washington, D.C., Dendievel had opened several successful restaurants in New York City, including Brasserie 360, in the years just before relocating to the Sacramento area.

At 55 Degrees, he is being joined in the kitchen by an old pal from New York, Christophe Gérard, most recently of Angèle Restaurant & Bar in Napa.

Menu: The restaurant's brasserie-style menu emphasizes dishes spirited and seasonal. They're generally rooted in French culinary traditions while taking advantage of regional provisions.

The appetizer list starts off with a chilled English pea soup with mint chiffonade and ends with a cured duck foie gras with rhubarb compote. In between are Dungeness crab cakes and an oxtail roulade.

The entree selection is brief but varied, and is about evenly divided between seafood and meat choices. Monkfish is served with fingerling potatoes, cippolini onions and lardons in a red wine jus, while rack of lamb comes with stuffed piquillo peppers and summer squash.

Desserts range from the heftiness of a hot bittersweet chocolate cake to the buoyancy of a poached peach on clafoutis with a strawberry coulis and chantilly crème.

Potential signature dishes: Dendievel and Gérard apparently love mussels, and prepare them four ways, including a style inspired by Provence (tomato concassé, shallots, basil) and another by Thailand (green curry, coconut milk, lemon grass, ginger).

The menu is compact, and it includes two intriguing vegetarian entrees: a risotto of wild and cultivated mushrooms with black truffle oil, and an organic poached egg on mashed potatoes with chanterelle mushrooms and an emulsion of English peas.

In addition to the housemade sorbets and ice creams, crème brûlée and profiterole, the simple but elegant lemon buttermilk panna cotta is apt to evolve into a crowd favorite.

Prices: Appetizers range from $6 to $19; entrees are in the low-to mid-$20s, except for the filet mignon ($34); and desserts are $8 and $9.

Wine list: Like the menu, it's brief and to the point, but international in scope and very selective in assembly, with exceptional producers represented in virtually every varietal and style (Au Bon Climat and Kosta Browne among the pinot noirs, Garretson among the Rhône styles, and so forth). Corkage is $15.

The particulars: Restaurant 55 Degrees, 555 Capitol Mall, Sacramento, serves lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; a limited menu through the afternoon weekdays; dinner from 5 to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, and 5-10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Valet parking is free. Reservations: (916) 553-4100. Web site: restaurant55.com.

About the writer:
Reach The Bee's Mike Dunne at ((916) 321-1143 or
 mdunne@sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/dunne.

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