Venue Review: The Margarita at Pine Creek

“Moonstruck,” the sweetly romantic 1987 movie in which an unsmiling Cher falls for her fiance’s compatibly dour brother, begins with a familiar song: “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.”

At about the same time, if you’ve ordered the movie menu at the Margarita, a lovely little pizza pie decorated with a scattering of fresh basil and truffle oil hits the table while the movie plays.

A few scenes later, when Cher decides, while peering at a menu, that she’s never going to fall in love and might as well marry someone safe, she tells her soon-to-be fiance that ordering the fish will disagree with him, and he should have the manicotti instead.

Then manicotti appears before you, stuffed with wild mushrooms, asparagus and ricotta, and doused with a peppery tomato sauce and delicate, handpeeled artichokes. Then there is chocolate cake. And, when you least expect it, popcorn with real butter.

Film writers often say watching a movie with a crowd in a theater enhances the experience. It’s nothing compared with watching a movie with a crowd, a paired three-course meal and a nice wine list.

So it’s happy news that the Margarita at PineCreek has brought back its movie dinner nights for a second summer.

The Margarita is one of the great secrets of Colorado Springs. It’s fun, smart, fresh, constantly changing and seriously delicious. The never-quite-the-same menu prepared from scratch by owner and chef couple Pati and Ken Davidson and chef Eric Viedt has a fervent following among savvy longtime locals.

Few newcomers have heard of the Margarita. No surprise, considering the funky little adobe is hidden on old family land that’s been inundated with a T.G.I. Friday’s, a Microsuites Inn and other modern flotsam. No one would come across it by accident. And the driveway is guarded by oddlooking giant carrot sculptures, so anyone who did could be forgiven for shrugging and driving on.

The normal drill at the restaurant is this: either make a reservation for a full, fivecourse prix fixe meal ($37), or order from the fabulous bar and patio menu.

Every Friday through September, patio diners can order the three-course movie dinner ($32).

But get there early or you won’t get a seat; the Margarita takes reservations inside only.

At dusk, weather permitting, the patio bar’s broad, corrugated metal roof creaks upward on hinges, like a squeaky drawbridge, to reveal a screen underneath. Diners scoot their chairs to one side of the table. The show starts.

It’s usually a quirky classic. This year, they’ve played “The Freshman,” “Indiana Jones” and “Rear Window.”

Don’t feel like eating a threecourse meal? The bar menu offers well-priced standards with a Margarita twist: chili-cornmeal-crusted fish tacos with honey-tomatillo salsa, avocado, and citrus-jicama slaw ($9); braised ribs with orange-chipotle-soy glaze and roasted cornjalapeño slaw ($11); a burger with Spanish sheep’s milk cheese, avocado, smoked bacon and a roasted red pepper-Dijon aioli.

I love how the Margarita does away with formality and focuses on what’s important. There are no tablecloths. The silver often doesn’t match. But everything is whipped up fresh and fabulous. When possible, ingredients are local and organic.

On a recent visit, the server made an apology everyone loves to hear: “Sorry, your guacamole will be a minute. They have to make it from scratch.”

The inside dinners are slightly more formal but just as phenomenal.

Diners choose an appetizer from an ever-evolving roster that includes delights such as roasted poblano peppers stuffed with shrimp, manchego cheese and chorizo, or beef carpacio with a mustard-glazed spinach pancetta salad drizzled in horseradish-lemon aioli. Soup and salad du jour follow.

Then there’s a choice of chicken, red meat, fish and inventive vegetarian entrees, all constructed with the same haute whimsy seen in the rest of menu.

Not every experiment works. On a recent night, an ahi tuna steak dredged in what was billed as tempura batter and deep fried ended up tasting like a doughnut. Great idea, wrong batter.

Generally, though, the place is not just good; it’s fascinating. They make a deep, dark sachertorte with layers of marmalade and raspberry jam that is so good it should be illegal.

What I like most though, is seeing people who love what they do. Too often smart chefs get bored after several years. They stop hanging around the kitchen, or worse, try to run several restaurants at once. The food usually suffers. Instead, the staff at the Margarita keep things interesting — every day a new menu, every week a new movie.

The love shows in the food, and the good feeling it exudes is contagious.

I went back the Friday after “Moonstruck” because the Davidsons were showing the Steve Martin knucklehead comedy “The Jerk,” and I couldn’t wait to see what the chef would prepare.

I was disappointed to find that equipment problems in the kitchen had caused them to nix the movie menu that night. Or at least I was disappointed until I saw the food scenes in the movie. If the chef had been true to the script, he would have either served a carnival snack called “pizza in a cup,” or the main character’s favorite meal, “tuna fish on white bread with mayonnaise, a Tab, and a couple of Twinkies.”