NAPOLEON INVADES STUDIO CITY.

Byline: Larry Lipson Daily News Restaurant Critic

The signature dessert at the new Napoleon in Studio City is not a napoleon, it's a chocolate souffle.

But if you want a napoleon ($3.75) for dessert, the house bakery department here does a good job, and this or any other freshly baked pastry from the display cases is yours for the asking.

As for its regular fare, one of the emperor Napoleon's favorite dishes, chicken or veal Marengo, created for him by his chef after the Battle of Marengo in 1800, doesn't appear on the menu either. But there's a thick, smoky, slow-roasted rib-eye steak on the bone ($17.50) served Fridays and Saturday nights here with roasted potatoes, mushrooms and escarole. It'll make you forget about Bonaparte and his food fancies forever.

Napoleon, a comfortable, casual eating place, describes itself as a bakery, cafe and deli. On the site of the longtime deli Weby's, it retains little, if any, of Weby's character. It's been completely refurbished and redecorated, now sporting a dramatic view kitchen featuring both a flaming rotisserie and a wood-burning pizza oven.

There's a complete coffee bar near the bakery and deli display cases in the rear, and a small outside, shaded, somewhat secluded patio dining area between the back doors and the shopping center parking lot.

The ownership, which also has had connections to Uzbekistan in Hollywood, and the Signature Grill and Rasputin in Sherman Oaks, evidently spared no expense in giving Napoleon an attractive, earth-toned interior environment.

And its menu presents a carefully chosen number of modern American dishes, plus the deemed-absolutely-necessary pizza and pasta offerings along with a few recipes displaying a hint or two of Asian influence.

The kitchen makes pretty good soups ($4.50 each) that include a tasty regular chicken and vegetable rendition and such nifty du jour recipes as carrot and ginger, one time creamy, another time without cream.

One of Napoleon's better appetizers is its handsome presentation of airy, delicate chicken potstickers ($6.50) that arrive fanned out on the plate with a piquant beer-flavored Thai-style sauce and a mini-serving of greens with cashews.

This is preferred over the chicken crepes ($6.50) in a chardonnay-Parmesan sauce, mostly because the stuffing of finely minced chicken and mushrooms ends up being a rather bland, listless paste.

However, gnocchi ($8.95) as a main course are wonderfully puffy and light potato flour dumplings cooked with a touch of garlic and served with a smooth, subtle sauce blend of tomato, cream, vodka and Parmesan and small sweet peas.

Thin-crusted pizzas include some that surprisingly arrive without the usual smearing of tomato sauce and layer of melted, often gummy mozzarella. One that I liked immensely was topped with duck sausage, sauteed spinach, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms and cilantro ($8.50).

Expertly handled rotisserie chicken ($10.95) brings forth a half a bird, moist, slightly crisped outside, smoky on the palate from oak wood and accompanied by red skinned potatoes and escarole.

Another Napoleon triumph is its simple whitefish recipe ($12.50) of crisped skin-on filet leaning on a twin bed of sauteed spinach and mashed potatoes complemented with a caper-citrus sauce.

An Asian-style noodle salad dish ($7.50) served cold with julienned vegetables and a sesame dressing probably would have worked out better with soba or thin rice noodles.

And lamb medallions ($14.50) were so difficult to chew one time, the majority of them were left uneaten. The cost of this item was removed from the bill with an apology.

Napoleon's nicely constructed chocolate souffle ($5.50), big enough for two to share, helped make amends.

Josephine, Napoleon's mate, undoubtedly would have enjoyed it.

THE FACTS

The restaurant: Napoleon.

Where: 12131 Ventura Blvd., Studio City.

When: Open for lunch, dinner and snacks from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Recommended items: Soups, chicken potstickers, cheeseless duck sausage and spinach thin-crust pizza, gnocchi with tomato-vodka sauce and peas, crispy whitefish with mashed potatoes and spinach, rotisserie chicken, slow-roasted thick rib-eye steak (Friday and Saturday nights only), chocolate souffle.

How much: Starters and sandwiches from $4.50 to $8.50, pizzas and salads from $6 to $10, pastas and entrees from $8.50 to $17.50, desserts from $4 to $5.50. Beer and wine. All major credit cards.

Wine list: Single-page list without vintage dates offers 31 selections (France, Italy, California, Washington, Oregon, Chile, Portugal), and there are four fruit wines on the dessert menu. Wines by the glass or per split range from $3.75 to $6 each. Twelve bottlings are priced under $20, actually as low as $14. Corkage: $3.

Reservations: Helpful. Call [phone].

Our rating: three stars for food; three and a half stars for service; three and a half stars for wine.

CAPTION(S):

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PHOTO Napoleon chef Marcos Arana, left, manager Michael Iovino and chef Marco Marquez beckon diners to the former Weby's space, now completely refurbished, on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.

John Lazar/Daily News