Acme hallmark remains fresh and vibrant fare

When Kevin Callaghan took over as chef of Acme Food & Beverage Co., he thought it would be temporary. As owner of the restaurant, he'd seen a succession of chefs hone their skills in his kitchen and move on to elite restaurants such as Nana's, Lantern and, most recently, Magnolia Grill.

Callaghan was proud that Acme, which he'd opened in 1998, was quickly establishing itself as a training ground for local culinary talent. His restaurant had even garnered national praise from Southern Living magazine, which named Acme to its Top 10 Tastes in the South list in 1999, and Bon Appetit, which named Acme one of its 50 best neighborhood restaurants in America in 2002.

Passionate self-taught cook that he was, Callaghan had learned a lot from the talented chefs who had worked in his kitchen. Enough, he figured, to take charge of Acme's eclectic, seasonally evolving menu until he could find a new chef.

That was two years ago. It didn't take Callaghan long to realize that he'd learned more than he thought. For starters, he learned that he enjoyed the intense hands-on contact with the foods that had inspired him to open a restaurant in the first place. Foods like locally raised, and whenever possible, organic produce. Like beef, chicken and pork that's free of antibiotics and hormones. Like line-caught fish and day boat scallops that are shipped in overnight for optimal freshness.

And given that Acme's guiding philosophy is to prepare these foods simply, avoiding elaborate preparations that might obscure their natural flavors, Callaghan realized he didn't need the bag of fancy tricks that comes with a culinary degree. His passion for honest food and the skills he'd learned from watching and working with Acme's chefs, he came to believe, were all he needed.

He was right. The food that has been coming out of Acme's kitchen of late is every bit as rewarding as it has ever been.

Indeed, it's hard to imagine how any chef, regardless of credentials, could improve on the cashew-crusted sablefish Callaghan served up as a first course special one recent weekend. The crust was light and crunchy, and the accompanying lightly curried parsnips well-suited to the dish. True to the Acme philosophy, neither stood in the way of a piece of fish so sweet and fragile that it beggared the "melts-in-your-mouth" cliche.

A salad of fried oysters, diced tasso ham and tatters of ripe brie on a bed of spinach tossed in a warm sherry vinaigrette doesn't need any tweaking, either. Nor does a slow-roasted pork empanada that packs succulent shreds of meat and well-seasoned refried beans into a fat half-moon of authentically cornmeal-musty crust. Grilled Carolina quail is skillfully cooked, too, though the mound of truffled white beans it perches on is on the dry side.

Entrees (or, as Acme calls them, "Bowls" and "Plates") maintain the generally high standard. Pan-seared day boat scallops are plump and briny-sweet atop a dune of risotto and shiitake mushrooms, and the accompanying salad of local greens and cucumbers is a welcome mid-November surprise. Even more surprising is the discovery that the shiitakes are locally cultivated. The only flaw, and a minor one at that, is that the risotto is cooked a shade past the creamy ideal.

Similarly, Acme's twist on the bistro classic steak frites is marred by tasty-but-limp French fries. But there's nothing to beef about when it comes to the flat iron steak, which is grilled to order and topped with a zippy olive tapenade; it is exceptionally tender despite the thinness of the cut.