“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”

It’s the best one-line review I could imagine for Colette at The Phipps, the rooftop restaurant that opened in the summer next door to Paramour. And the restaurant wrote the line itself.

Not itself, really. It’s a quote from the pioneering French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, the namesake and inspiration for this self-described union of French, Latin American and Asian culinary styles. And it appeared next to the first chapter of the menu, the “Cold & Raw” section, the only chapter heading that came close to describing the food contained within. 

What are we to make of “Close to Your Heart” or “Hope Costs Nothing” or “Live in the Moment”? Where do you put Lasagna Birria Duck or a Lobster Sushi Arepa or $30 gold-leaf tacos? I don’t know. And neither, it seems, does Colette at The Phipps.

When it opened in June, Colette seemed like the kind of place San Antonio needs. Ambitious, playful, experimental. A place that capitalizes on the rooftop glam of Paramour, with the sunset sky above and the River Walk below. A place unafraid to drop full-on DJ remixes of San Antonio’s greatest culinary hits with global guest spots. Carnitas dumplings, pozole ramen, horchata ratatouille.

But that’s the thing about a place that brands itself as a mashup of French, Latin American and Asian food. Sometimes you get one, sometimes you get none and sometimes you get all three. And sometimes you get a “We Are the World” mashup where it’s all Cyndi Lauper and no Michael Jackson.

Or maybe Forrest Gump, because I never knew what I was gonna get. One night, the host said chef Darlen Narvaez was transitioning to a new menu that would leave much of the old two-page menu behind. So I opted for a four-course preview menu. Another night, working from the full menu, I was told the kitchen was out of half the things I intended to try.

The third time was the least charming,as I arrived to find the restaurant space closed without notice. The host explained that Colette’s open-air field kitchen was being renovated, then guided me to an improvised conversation pit on the Paramour patio, where I could order from a menu trimmed to six plates.

I understand that restaurants are organic things, and things happen. And I admire improvisation. But three times?

 Colette already is a leap of faith, a purely outdoor space subject to San Antonio’s frustrating cocktail of scorching heat, historic freezes and hurricane rains. On a perfect night, it’s all breeze and birthday parties and Bee Gees, and the staff brings a sense of earnest engagement. They wheeled over space heaters, made cocktails in sugar-skull cups and unveiled dishes with the sweep of wicker-dome cloches over water-stained cocktail trays.

But at some point, it has to be about the food, and that’s where Colette’s grand experiment turned into a game of Name That Influence, the same game we play when we try to make sense of a new band, the one that sounds like the Black Crowes doing Bananarama. 

If something is shaped like the South American foldover called an arepa, is that enough to call it an arepa? If you can pretend the arepa shell is sushi rice fried as hard as fast-food hashbrowns, then sure. Then stuff it with lobster and avocado and sriracha mayo and call it a Lobster Sushi Arepa, a lobster roll born in the same lab as a Marvel villain. 

A creation called Gigi Causa — drawing from the author Colette’s most famous work and the layered Peruvian casserole dish — took 10 steps to get nowhere in particular. The menu used three lines to describe what I’d call a ring of wet tuna salad with mashed potatoes. A petite Le Creuset pot of ratatouille was unrecognizable as ratatouille, a thin layer of squash slices fanned out over chicharrón prensado, all of it ravaged by salt, a $27 side dish masquerading as an entree.

As long as we’re quoting one-name French icons, let’s throw in one from Coco Chanel: “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”

South America turned up again in a Venezuelan fosforera, a seafood stew wrong in every way. Pale popcorn shrimp, grainy bubble-gum calamari rings and two lonely mussels swam in a stock that missed whatever mark it intended. Not quite cioppino, not quite gumbo, not quite bouillabaisse. Duck Birria Lasagna sounded like one of those fridge-magnet word games, a clown car of styles welded together in one cheesy clump.

I’ve seen Instagram pictures of Colette’s Kobe Crispy Rice, pictures that suggested vibrant red beef tartare on neat mahogany planks of crispy rice with caviar. Not even close. My camera must be off, because mine was brain-colored mush on rock-hard blocks. With caviar. If you’re looking for it, it’s in the section called “Hope Costs Nothing.” Yes, but the Kobe Crispy Rice? That’ll cost you $45. Tax, gratuity — and hope — not included.

Colette’s mango ceviche offered some relief, a floral topical layering of marinated shrimp and fresh mango braced by citrus. And the rib-eye steak laid across a trio of tacos with blue-corn tortillas and a Gouda cheese crust almost made the $30 price tag for “Tacos Lust” seem more justified than the gold flake layered on ridges of grilled corn. Can we say goodbye to gold leaf already? The fact that we can eat it doesn’t mean we should, even if it matches our golden throne.

In the middle of all the ingredient overkill on the night I was shuffled to the patio, I found myself suffering from order envy as I watched the guys next to me get a charcuterie plate and chicken lollipops from the Paramour menu. I couldn’t help thinking that if Colette fades away into a Sylvia Plath sunset, we’ll always have Paramour.