Dining Brief: Olana

By JULIA MOSKIN

OLANA

72 Madison Avenue (28th Street), (212) 725-4900, olananyc.com.

Dining at Olana is like dating a charming cad: it alternately tries to please its patrons, then forgets them completely.

It dips in and out of a Hudson River Valley theme, with some local produce and cheeses (and a name meant to honor the estate of the Hudson River School painter Frederic Church), but quickly spins into ChefLand, where lavender-saba vinaigrette and poppy seed white chocolate ganache make up the local cuisine.

There are some finely tuned flavors, as in a chilled tomato consommé ($12) and a sweet-sour sauce for pork tenderloin ($27). There are nice touches like violet-flavored tapioca pearls on a creamy dessert ($11), and a delicious garnish of corn purée and lardons served with soft-shell crabs ($18).

But nice touches too often yield to nosedives: an amuse-bouche one night looked like the wilted contents of the kitchen sink drain at the end of dinner, and the watermelon “nage” served with crab salad had the shallow flavor and sweetness of Froot Loops. A rib-eye cut of lamb tenderloin is deconstructed into six bites of meat, surrounded by bitsy baby vegetables — for $39.

Chef Al di Meglio is clearly talented and trying hard, but what this restaurant needs is a strict personal trainer, to improve tightness and tone. The house-made pasta menu, offering little in the way of fresh flavors, is just so much flab.

Service at lunch, when the restaurant is often filled with local office workers, can be very pleasant but in the evenings, the neighborhood empties out and the staff grows lackadaisical.