Humboldt Fog goat Cheese Souffl/ with organic baby beets and arugula salad topped with candied pecans is $9 on Tango's appetizer menu.
Photo courtesy OF Tango Restaurant

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The most exotic thing on the menu at Tango Restaurant & Wine Bar may not be the foie gras, goat cheese souffle, venison chop or caviar. No, the most exotic offering, especially for a fine Escondido restaurant, may be the hours.

"I've lived in San Francisco, and in North Beach they have Italian places open until 4 a.m.," said Russell Hawkins, who sees nothing unusual about closing his new restaurant on Grand Avenue at midnight three nights a week.

Hawkins, executive chef of Tango Restaurant & Wine Bar, said the midnight closings will be especially appreciated by others who work in the restaurant industry who have few dinner choices other than fast food and diners once they get off work. With a movie theater complex and the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, just blocks away, Hawkins likely can expect audience members looking for food after their shows.

So far his hunch has been right, and Hawkins said he had even more diners than he expected in the later hours last Friday.

Hawkins, 30, is a San Diego native who began his career working in pizza places at 16. At 20, he was an apprentice in an Escondido French restaurant, which led to a job at Mille Fleurs in Rancho Santa Fe and then to La Folie in San Francisco.

"I was really honing my skills from restaurant to restaurant," he said.

He next worked at the world-famous Charlie Trotter's in Chicago, then returned about two years ago and worked as sous chef at Mr. A's in San Diego. He worked at The Market in Del Mar before opening Tango Restaurant with partner Bill Sapp.

"We've had our eye out looking for a restaurant," Hawkins said. "I've definitely liked Grand Avenue."

The two decided on the former site of Asia Vous restaurant and asked friends to suggest names before deciding on Tango, where the slogan is "A dance between wine and food."

The restaurant does feature Argentina wines, but the name does not necessarily reflect the menu, Hawkins said. It does, however, have tapaslike servings on its small-plate menu served after 10 p.m.

Items on that menu range from $5 to $12 and include short-rib panini, a selection of artisan cheeses, chicken herb sausage, gnocchi shells and Dungeness crab.

Main courses range from about $18 to $26 and include roasted lamb rack, salmon Wellington and gnocchi shells with cheddar served with a portobello panini and sun-dried tomato bisque.

The name of some menu items are deceptively simple. Fish and chips actually is pan-seared Chilean sea bass resting atop bok choy and baby shiitake mushrooms, topped with lightly crisped lotus chips, and the pork dish is a honey-glazed Kurobuta shank with baked beans and Brussels sprouts.

A venison chop with venison meatloaf sells for $26, a price Hawkins said is almost unheard of. The reasonable prices are possible largely because the restaurant shies away from premium cuts while still buying high-end meats, he said. Lamb is a shoulder cut, for instance, and the Kobe steak is a blank steak rather than a beef filet.

Hawkins said he used American classics as a starting point and used them for inspiration to make something different. The result is an exotic menu with items such as fish and chips, fried chicken and even root beer floats.

"I think what we're trying to do is serve familiar food and basically have a new approach on familiar foods," he said. "Our philosophy is we can make anything good."

-- Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

Tango Restaurant & Wine Bar

417 W. Grand Ave.

Escondido

(760) 747-5000

Hours:

5 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays

5 p.m. to midnight Thursdays - Saturdays

4 to 9 p.m. Sundays

Closed Mondays

www.TangoOnGrand.com

Appetizers $8 to $10, main course $18 to $26