Level Five: Quick comfort food at a high standard

Level Five, the Guthrie's more affordable, no-reservations eatery, is a work in progress.

Chef Lenny Russo started off with higher hopes, turning out slightly less stylized versions of Cue fare -- a gorgeous lobster salad, a delicate carrot-fennel-infused risotto and a frisée-pancetta-poached duck egg salad -- but the pressures of feeding large crowds under tight deadlines at moderate prices forced him to downscale his plans.

The emphasis changed to quick comfort foods. Dinner includes a pair of uncomplicated three-course meals (a good value at $17 to $19). One started with a simple toss of farm-fresh field greens dashed with a rich balsamic and segued into a juicy pistou-stuffed pork shoulder paired with absurdly creamy mashed potatoes. The other was a plate of sprightly butter lettuces dressed in a lemon vinaigrette and a hearty meat loaf. A few a la carte items (appetizers $5 to $8, entrees $11 to $13) included a sublime potato-sweet-corn chowder, a flavorful white-wine coq au vin and a stack of eggplant and mozzarella finished with a jazzy smoked tomato sauce.

Lunch has morphed into a similarly straightforward setup: grilled cheese, chicken salad and roast beef sandwiches, all executed at a higher standard than your basic noon counter, but nothing like the kitchen's first few weeks, when Russo was offering a fantastic combo of grilled walleye swiped with a honey-tinted tartar sauce and served on ciabatta. One piece of good news: He's retained the addictive polenta fries, crisp cornmeal-Parmigiano-Reggiano batons fried in sunflower oil and served with a side of frisky aoili. I could eat them every day.

Desserts were uneven. A strawberry roulade had just the right perky spring in its step, and an abundance of ripe raspberries and blackberries made a sourdough bread pudding an absolute joy. But brownies were dull and dry, and a golden raisin carrot cake suffered from a supermarket vibe.

The room is problematic. Wedged in between the two main auditoriums on the building's fifth floor, it's essentially a table- and chair-lined corridor, albeit a fairly slick one, all fashionable blacks and greys, its mirrored walls shimmering with the same kind of ghostly images haunting the building's exterior. It's at its best on a sweltering summer afternoon, a cool respite from the heat; a blue glass wall at the far end of the space glows in clever juxtaposition to the window on the opposite side, which is nothing but blinding sunlight bouncing off the Metrodome's white roof. High drama, indeed.

RICK NELSON