Take comfort in Sebastopol's P/30

It takes a brave person to open a restaurant in the teeth of this recession, a cheerful one to make it a happy place, and a brilliant one to make it a success. That's what Patrick Tafoya has done.

After causing an appreciative stir with his delectable high-end cooking at The Duck Club in Bodega Bay, where he worked until last fall, he has stepped out with his own place, called P/30 (the initial stands for Patrick and he's 30 years old), in the roadside building that housed the erstwhile St. Rose on Bodega Highway a few miles west of Sebastopol.

The secret of his success is the subtitle of the restaurant: “Cheap + Chic Comfort Food.” The menu is small at 11 items, and they range in price from $5 for the cheapest appetizer to $15 for the most expensive entrée.

The food is chic because every bit of each item is thought out and tweaked in some interesting way. Take, for instance, the Fried Gleason Ranch Chicken ($14 ***). Gleason Ranch is a family farm in nearby Bodega raising meat animals on pasture, without hormones or antibiotics. A large breast was dipped in batter and fried to a light golden brown. (The batter could have used a little more salt.) With it came a thick Belgian-style brown-butter waffle and a small pot of strawberry jam. Sort of a summer Sunday lunch down in northern Mississippi.

At most restaurants, an order of fries is just that, but at P/30, the Kennebec Sea Salt Fries ($5 **** ) are truly exceptional. First, they are cut from Kennebec potatoes, a variety that's not the easiest to grow because of its susceptibility to fungus attack, but which yields potatoes of exactly the right consistency and flavor to make the finest French fries. Not only that, but Tafoya double-cooks them for an extra crispy surface and sprinkles sea salt over them. They are served with three small pots containing ketchup laced with Bloody Mary, a spicy aioli, and a ranch dip. But the fries are so good, it seems a shame to dip them in anything at all.

Fried chicken and fries are indeed comfort food, but so are the rest of the items on the menu, including the iconic comfort food, Mac and Cheese ($7 ***½). Not only does it contain macaroni and St. Jorges cheese (Tafoya uses the Portuguese spelling of St. George, although Joe and Mary Matos who are originally from the island of Sao Jorge in the Azores and who've been making this cheese in Santa Rosa since the 1970s, call their cheese St. George), but also caramelized onions, bacon and a crunchy top of crispy bread crumbs. Any more comforting and the customers will start drifting off in their seats.

The room is clean, with hardwood floors and walls painted warm ochre. It's dominated by two large paintings, one of a woman with a pink blouse and pink flower in her hair on an orange background. It took a while, but it finally sank in that the waitresses also had the same pink flowers in their hair. How nice to see the décor come to life like that.

Tables are set with white tablecloths covered with white butcher paper. Pink tulips graced the tables on a recent night. Service is swift, sweet and thoughtful. The wine list is small and nicely priced. An excellent 2007 Filus Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina, costs a lowly $21 but delivers big flavor. The 2008 Trecini Sauvignon Blanc is $22, and a 2007 Preston Rhone Blend from Dry Creek Valley is $55. Corkage is $15.

Chef Tafoya must have missed his mother's admonition not to play with his food, for his Egg in a Hole ($10 ***) is a playful appetizer consisting of two slabs of toasted brioche with a hole cut from their centers, filled with a perfectly cooked sunny-side-up egg set in the hole like the morning sun about to rise. By perfectly cooked I mean that the yolk wasn't runny, but firmed up just enough that it smeared itself lovingly on the toast. With it came watercress and asparagus that had been peeled so it was tender from tip to cut end, then lightly grilled. The whole business was just a wonderful thing to eat.

A Seafood Stew ($15 ***) was likewise a delicious treat. Cherrystone clams, mussels and chunks of black cod swim in an ocean of delicate tomato-fennel broth along with slivers of garlic, tomatoes and small potatoes. This is no intense bouillabaisse, but rather a refined and brothy bowl of fruits de mer. The filling of the Biscuit-Topped Chicken Pot Pie ($12 **½) was a gooey mishmash of shredded chicken and vegetables that would have been much better if the ingredients had more textural integrity. It was topped with popcorn-sized bites of biscuit dough that puffed and browned nicely in the oven.

It takes a practiced cook to turn out a perfect pot roast, especially with a cut of lamb rather than bottom round of beef, and Tafoya shows his skill with Lamb Pot Roast ($14 **** ). Flavor just spills out of every bite. The lamb is braised until nearly falling apart, but is plenty juicy. Caramelized pearl onions add their savory accent, along with glazed carrots and potatoes. The plate is a triumph and took me straight back to my boyhood home where my mom — an excellent cook — often made pot roast but seldom quite as good as this one. Triple yum!

Of course in any restaurant devoted to comfort food, there has to be The Burger ($11 ***½), and this one is just about as good as a burger gets. The ground beef patty is thick — a good half pound — and served to your taste. Order the burger medium and it will arrive medium, with a pretty-in-pink middle. The bun is house-made using real butter. The pickles are house-made. The fries are those double-dipped Kennebecs with sea salt, and there's a spicy aioli. You get to choose from Pt. Reyes Blue, St. Jorges, or cheddar cheese on top.

Desserts are even more fun than the savory part of the meal. Smores for Two ($10 *** ) features chocolate ganache, brownies and marshmallow fluff served in a snap-lid Mason jar, with house made chocolate grahams on the side. Moist Carrot Cake ($7 ****) is rich with a rum-raisin sauce and candied walnuts, with cream cheese piped on top in thick swags of creamy sweetness. A scoop of ice cream flavored with candy-cap mushrooms (that taste exactly like maple syrup) accompanies the cake.

To sum up: You seldom find food this good at prices this low. A great place for the whole family.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.