When word of a new restaurant in the works begins circulating around town, the obvious questions that pop into mind are:

What kind of food? Who’s the chef? Where?

So when we started looking for answers as well as checking out the folks involved in the new dining establishment going in at the corner of Second and Franklin streets, we were delighted to get an invitation to an informal dinner where restaurant chef Charles Weber would be soliciting opinions on dishes he’s proposing for the menu.

Weber, downtown Napa diners will recall, was opening chef for ZuZu, Mick Salyer’s popular tapas eatery on Main Street.

He’s back in town, teaming up with Rich Poliak and his wife, Cathy, to open Elements, a restaurant and wine bar, in early August.

Before salivating over memories of the recent dinner, let’s look at the approach the Elements team is taking in opening up a new downtown dining room that emphasizes pairing wine with food.

Weber says the menu will encompass the broad spectrum of Mediterranean cuisine, focusing mostly on dishes and ingredients familiar to residents of France, Italy, Spain and Morocco.

“The kitchen is small, so I think almost out of necessity we’ll stick with small plates, pretty much appetizer and salad portions,” he notes. “I think people are eager today to try a few small plates rather than just dig into one large entree.

“I’m not saying we won’t do a main course, like a steak for two that can be paired with a great red (wine).”

Weber said he and his partners intend to focus on food and wine pairing, “recommending a particular glass of wine that can go with a dish. But we intend to do that without pretense, because we want to encourage experimentation.”

That experimentation begins with the wine list at Elements. Rich Poliak points out that his goal is to start with 50 wines and work up to about 75, all available by the glass.

The restaurant will have a wall of wine, with selections agreed upon by Poliak, Weber, general manager Noel Burke and friend and winemaker Jim Moore. Guests can pop in for a glass at the standup wine bar or ease into one of the four-dozen seats available for dining throughout the day.

Wines from the Mediterranean countries (on which the menu is based) will complement those from Napa and Sonoma cellars.

Wine is also intended to play an important role in the cheese program Weber has in mind for Elements. “At most restaurants, you often have three or four cheeses to choose from,” he says. “That’s nice but I want to offer a wide range of cheese, so you can have a couple glasses of wine with a few interesting pieces of cheese, along with some pickled figs, membrillo and nuts, if you drop by after work, or any time of day for that matter.”

Poliak calls the restaurant design “contemporary, with an elmwood wine bar, and accents of aluminum, steel and wood. A copper-colored tile floor complements the earth tones of restaurant colors and furnishings, he adds. “We wanted to bring a little of the city’s urban edge (to Elements) without going too far.”

 Plans call for Elements to welcome diners by early August, with doors opening daily at 11:30 a.m. and food service offered continuously until midnight. “We may open earlier on Sundays for a champagne brunch, and then close a little earlier on those evenings,” Poliak added.

Listen to the lip-smacking

Rich and Cathy Poliak welcomed friends and fellow wine lovers to their Napa home the other evening for Weber’s test menu. Weber worked his magic in the couple’s northeast Napa home while a hungry horde looked on just a few feet away in the cozy dining room.

It began with a remarkable lobster ceviche that included shards of Thai coconut, a tiny dice of Thai chile and the mysterious but attractive flavor of galangal, or what some people call Thai ginger. While the dish got a thumbs up all ’round, the wine pairing didn’t. It was an off-dry 2006 F. Weins Prum Riesling Spätlese and some around the table didn’t cotton to the wine’s slightly sweet edge.

However, both chef and “wine geek” (Poliak casts himself as “head foodie and wine geek” on his business cards) were all but cheered for the next course. Paired with a perfumy, crisp 2006 Rueda verdejo from Naia was a very tasty bowl of Monterey calamari with Spanish chorizo and fresh oregano. It’s a rustic dish with lots of spice, great texture and a luscious broth flavored by the chorizo. This dish will surely be on the menu. And that verdejo, with its spice, citrus and mineral notes, should be the recommended wine for the dish.

The evening’s most attractive plate was Weber’s tuna carpaccio niçoise, a deconstructed rendition of the traditional French tuna salad that features a colorful, thin slice of ahi attractively framed with dressing-tossed baby potato halves, a curled anchovy, quail egg, caper berry and a dab of olive tapenade. We were spoiled with a pair of wines for this course — a 2005 Chateau de Puligny Montrachet and a 2001 chardonnay from Spelletich. The well-aged chardonnay (I think this was Russian River fruit) complemented the diverse elements of this marvelous dish. You can bet it’s a keeper. (And I kept wishing I had at least one bottle of the Spelletich in my cellar. Wow!)

Diners also oohed and aahed over the pairing of sautéed sweetbreads served atop tightly curled angel hair pasta sauced with fresh tomato and basil. The hosts poured their last bottle of a silky, spicy Cascina Val del Prete Barbera d’Alba Superiore Carolina from the 2004 harvest, a lovely complement to this dish. Not certain we had enough wine for this course, Poliak also pulled the cork on a 2001 Barolo from Pio Cesare. I was beginning to think we were a bit spoiled.

I confirmed that impression when the chef waltzed in from the kitchen with the next course — one Colorado lamb chop nestled up to one Australian lamb chop, along with a sauté of purple and orange cauliflower. Weber wanted an opinion on the lamb pedigree. He wanted to know which one to feature at the new restaurant. We chewed, we tasted, and tasted again, and over a glass of Jim Moore’s 2000 Il Ponte Sangiovese, I think we agreed on the Australian.

Another winner that’s sure to make the cut is Weber’s take on the traditional tarte tatin. Made with peaches instead of apples, this tasty dessert is topped with a scoop of creamy mascarpone ice cream and drizzled with raspberry sauce. A sweet Hungarian Tokaj tied it all together.

If the dishes served to us that evening are indicative of what Weber has in store at Elements, the 1400 Second St. establishment should  become a haven for foodies and wine geeks like the owners and those gathered around the couple’s dining table that evening.

The principals

Also at the table and pouring wine for guests was Elements general manager Noel Burke, who held down a similar post at Julia’s Kitchen. Raised in Washington, D.C., Burke began working in restaurants while a student at George Mason University. He settled in Oregon for a time, working at Jonathan’s Oyster Bar in Portland.

Born in Milwaukee, Weber calls Chicago his “culinary home base.” On the West Coast, he worked for Hyatt hotels and returned to the Bay Area to work for Left Bank Restaurants and then open ZuZu. “This is my third time (on the West Coast),” Weber pointed out. “And what do they say? Third time’s a charm.”

Rich and Cathy Poliak are true foodies. They’ve been bicycling and eating their way through Italy every other year since 1994.

His epiphany occurred while sitting in a Santa Rosa wine bar, enjoying a small plate of food and a glass of wine. He thought: “I can do this and I can do it better,” and the plan for Elements began to take shape.

Poliak is a veteran of the high tech world, signing on with Intel right out of college 27 years ago. He says he’ll be able make “this big transition” because he has the help of his wife, Cathy, who has “great business sense.

“I’ve been doing this for friends for a long time, so I figured I might as well make it my second career.”