Chez Pierre Fills Restaurant Gap With Old-Fashioned French Dining

Chez Pierre is a textbook example of the classic French restaurant, drawn precisely according to the specifications that have made Gallic eateries the destination in this country whenever “fine dining” is the object of an evening’s expedition.

Of course, the textbook from which this new, Shelter Island-area bistro borrows its menu and atmosphere was written about 50 years ago. The dishes are reassuringly familiar; not a one of them will challenge the sensibilities of anyone to whom the peaks of French haute cuisine are capped by such preparations as onion soup and escargots bourguignonne. And the waiters belong to that curiously talented, almost extinct breed of men who excel at making one feel pampered and important, and yet faintly inferior at the same time.

But while this restaurant may be out of step with times that have brought us such passing spectacles as nouvelle cuisine and its various aberrant derivatives, it does, like a square peg slipping into a square hole, fill a gap in the ranks of local restaurants. There is demand for such dishes as steak au poivre, lobster Thermidor and frog legs in garlic butter, a demand that very few restaurants are meeting. And more people than may be willing to admit it probably sometimes yearn for the soothing, comfortable furnishings of the old-line French restaurants.

This restaurant surely owes its old-fashioned stance to the experiences of proprietor Pierre Dhainaut, who was born in Paris’ 16th Arrondissement and worked in restaurants on the Continent before migrating to Guadalajara 18 years ago. He opened several restaurants there (he continues to operate two of them), and because contemporary French cooking trends and fads never deeply penetrated the consciousness of Mexican restaurateurs, Dhainaut serves the sort of menu that has served him well during his sojourn in the Western Hemisphere.

Dhainaut also maintains the sort of atmosphere and decor typical of the French neighborhood restaurants of his youth. Chez Pierre’s appearance is pleasantly out of step with the wood-and-greenery motif that decorates so many of San Diego’s dining rooms. A deep blue wallpaper lends a cozy intimacy to the dining rooms, which are finished with beamed ceilings and the sort of nondescript paintings that have come to be associated with French restaurants. Both dining rooms are pleasant, but the one of choice would be the upstairs room, which opens onto a balcony that looks over a yacht anchorage.

The menu opens pleasantly enough with such first-course options as oysters Rockefeller, smoked salmon and a French shrimp cocktail in which a homemade mayonnaise, tinted pink with chopped fresh tomato and thus called sauce corail, substitutes for the spicy American-style cocktail sauce.

This same homemade mayonnaise, this time sprinkled with black caviar, dresses an agreeably luxurious plate of artichoke bottoms filled with crab meat. This is the sort of simple, light but tasty first course that made French cafe cooking famous, and it is quite nice. One important factor is the homemade mayonnaise, which has a velvety texture and fresh flavor quite superior to the texture and flavor of commercial mayonnaise.

Another nice starter is a trio of homemade pates. These range from a salty, rough-textured country-style version to a slice of highly refined, delicate liver pate, and each is excellent. In France, pate generally appears as a first course, unlike here, where it more often serves as a snack or cocktail nibble, and it does make a good preface to a meal.

A house salad precedes entrees; this is the classic “little French salad,” just a small pile of greens dressed with oil and a touch of vinegar, the lettuce soft and buttery and the flavor quite beguiling. Snippets of cucumber and heart of palm add a little variety.

The kitchen fares less well in the entree department, and while it doesn’t exactly fail, some of the dishes do deserve the “exceptionally mediocre” designation that one guest bestowed upon a serving of cassoulet. The portions, generous in size, are beautifully garnished with a bouquet of vegetables that can extend to six or seven items, but sometimes the recipes followed by the cooks simply seem second-rate.

The cassoulet, for example, lacked the robust heartiness that characterizes this classic bean-and-meat casserole of Southwest France. The chunks of lamb had been cooked far past the stage of tenderness, and the sausages, while good, were the store-bought, sweet Italian kind, rather than the pungent, garlic-laden variety called for in traditional recipes. The beans were good, and the liquid (an essential part of the dish), well-flavored but thin.

The menu’s least typical dish, crab Creole (the inclusion of much cayenne pepper makes this preparation distantly related to the Creole and Cajun cooking of this country, but it is not at all inspired by these home-grown cuisines) succeeded rather better. The sharp, creamy white wine sauce included a few mushrooms for variety, but the dish consisted basically of an amazing portion of rich, flaky crab meat, lightly cooked and piled back into its shell for dramatic presentation.

The same sauce (minus the cayenne) seemed the basis of the sauce used in the lobster Thermidor, which classically calls for a much thicker and heavier moistening. It also calls for a fair amount of dry mustard, which this version lacked. Thermidor is a fairly hot dish, the spiciness used to emphasize the silky richness of the lobster. Restaurants often mistakenly try to make one sauce do for two dishes.

The entree list continues with a fair selection of other seafood dishes, such as sole meuniere, swordfish in caper sauce and shrimp sauteed with Pernod, and then switches to such simple meat dishes as filet mignon, either treated au poivre or served with sauce bearnaise. The waiter recommended the au poivre presentation to a guest who wanted to order a filet bearnaise, and his suggestion proved a happy one; the tender steak, coated on all sides with coarsely crushed black peppercorns, had a fine, hot, aromatic flavor that was nicely tempered by a mild cream sauce.

Chez Pierre

5120 N. Harbor Drive, San Diego

223-2876

Dinner served 5 to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday; closed Sundays.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a glass of house wine each, tax and tip, $35 to $65.