Once upon a time, supper clubs were glamorous nightclubs where the music was brassy, the service suave and the food stylish. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and all the bartenders knew to shake a martini to waltz time.

Nowadays, a supper club is apt to be a loose group of foodies who gather periodically in the intimacy of one of their homes to show off and share their cooking skills.

But for the past couple of months, Sacramento has had a new kind of Supper Club, which in aspiration and attitude borrows from those other styles, yet has its own spunky personality.

There are no martinis here -- no spirits at all -- and no smoking and no live band, though the recorded music runs to torchy ballads and other staples of the golden era of the supper club in the 1940s and '50s.

Servers, on the other hand -- dressed entirely in black, but casually, not formally -- are a throwback to times when service personnel were trained to be anticipatory and quick, with a warm and breezy cordiality.

The headliners are the husband-and-wife team of Matt and Yvette Woolston, who welcome guests into their new "home" with a quiet pride and concentrated but unforced eagerness to astonish and please.

This is no potluck, however. You put yourself in their hands, and they whisk you off to an evening's culinary entertainment that is as rich with surprise as it is flawless. Nearly four hours later -- which seem to pass more like 90 minutes -- you not only feel exceptionally well fed, you sense you have witnessed the rise of a startling new star on the Sacramento dining scene. (Actually, Matt Woolston has been a solid culinary presence here for 15 years, the past 12 as the low-profile executive chef at David Berkley Fine Wines & Specialty Foods. Yvette Woolston has been a personal chef and also worked at David Berkley, in the catering department. Supper Club is their first restaurant.)

Here's the game plan:

Supper Club is open Saturdays only, though as it develops a following the couple plans to add dinners Thursdays and Fridays. In the meantime, they also use the setting for periodic cooking classes and wine tastings.

The six-course menu changes monthly and is prix-fixe: $75 per person without a glass of wine with each course, $105 per person with wines. Reservations are required.

Diners are greeted at the door with a glass of the night's first wine, chosen to complement the first course, appetizers handed out by circulating servers. On this evening, a lean and peachy viognier accompanied perfectly grilled rosemary-scented prawns and hearty spring rolls of shredded Muscovy duck, accompanied with a ginger and mango dipping sauce both spicy and sweet. The appropriateness of the pairing, coupled with the precision of the food, was the first suggestion that something special was starting to unfold.

During this relaxed prelude, guests are welcome to mingle or to drift off to a corner or their table.

The lighting, music and tempo are calculated to encourage camaraderie, but no one is forced to be a party animal, though with time and the lubrication provided by wine some bonhomie and table-hopping materialize, even in a room full of strangers. A couple can have a fun evening in their own little world at Supper Club, but the setup and the style of cookery -- creative, refined, passionate -- suggest that the people who will most enjoy themselves are those in parties of four or six or eight who share an abiding interest in food and wine.

Matt Woolston gives them a lot to talk about. Once all the patrons are seated, he steps out of the kitchen and with confidence and pride explains each course.

After he ducks back into the kitchen to continue to orchestrate the night's parade of captivating dishes, wine steward Bill Gilbert takes the floor to introduce each wine as it is poured, explaining pedigree and nature in a manner that is intelligent, light and fun.

Woolston's culinary style runs to a fresh and lively take on contemporary California and Mediterranean cooking. He's keen on fresh local and seasonal ingredients, so much so that at the last minute he may add a bonus dish based on some prime provision he just discovered at a nearby farm. Such was the case the other evening when he added a vivid chilled melon soup in a martini glass, perked up with a mint chiffonade and brightened with an island of brilliant blood-orange purée.

A salad at once both cultured and feral -the quiet civility of black Mission figs and Belgian endive punctuated with the richness of Shaft blue cheese and the spiciness of arugula -followed the soup.

The salad in turn was followed by three main dishes. Mind you, each diner got all three, there was no choosing one or the other. In order, they were:

* Perfectly seared blue-nose bass crusted lightly with cumin, served on a sweet cake of white corn and attended by roasted poblano chili peppers and a tomato salsa, all in ideal proportion. This was paired brilliantly with the sleek, robust and fruity MacRostie 2000 Carneros Chardonnay, which had just the right spiciness to go with the cumin.

* A juicy pork tenderloin, rubbed lightly with rosemary and accompanied with a spirited tapenade of four kinds of olives and big, meaty spagna beans whose rich flavor nearly upstaged the delicate meat.

* Three cuts of marvelous New Zealand lamb -- rambunctious rack, stately T-bone and smooth sirloin -- lightly seasoned with Dijon mustard and rosemary and served with rich and racy sides of grilled eggplant and braised cipollini onions. In another outstanding pairing, the chocolate, cherry and mint of the Simi 1999 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon flattered exquisitely the richness of the lamb.

To conclude, guests did get a choice: either a platter of four varied cheeses with grapes, pears and nuts, or what quickly became my leading candidate for dessert of the year, a cheery four-berry tart in a pine nut crust, attended by a remarkable caramel sauce shot through with the tang of blood orange.

The Woolstons face a couple of challenges in drawing patrons to Supper Club. They've tried to warm up the room with oversized 1950s-era lampshades for chandeliers and other modern touches, but it's still big, dark, hard and cold; a few area rugs, a couple of sofas, some more art and a fireplace would help soften and warm the quarters.

Also, Supper Club is the third restaurant in the past four years to try to make a go of this troubled site along Del Paso Boulevard. It's a neighborhood that unnerves some people, not without reason, though those reasons tend to be exaggerated. It would be a shame if they allow their apprehension to deny them the joy and revelation of experiencing the most artistic and solid dining to debut in Sacramento this year.

Supper Club       Website

1616 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento (916) 920-2885

4 stars/$$$$

Food: Taking his cues from the California and Mediterranean wings of the culinary arts, chef Matt Woolston is transforming first-rate regional and seasonal ingredients into flawless masterworks of passion, intricacy and individuality.

Ambience: Despite efforts to restyle a hard, cold gallery into a romantic setting evocative of a 1950s supper club, the room remains on the chilly side.

Hits: Service correct but relaxed, with a gentle-hand-on-the-shoulder friendliness. Compact but exciting and invitingly priced wine list. Intelligent recommended pairings of food and wine. Concise, low-key introductions of dishes and wines.

Misses: Small parking area. Inside could use some area rugs and more art.

Hours: For now, Saturdays only, starting at 6:30 p.m. and continuing for about four hours.

* Poor; ** Fair; *** Good; * * * * Excellent
$ Entrees around $5; $$ Entrees around $10; $$$ Entreees around $15; $$$$ Entrees around $20
Z Whispering OK; Z Z Conversation easy; Z Z Z Hard to hear; Z Z Z Z Very noisy