LE CHATEAU: A BRIGHT SPOT ON BRISTOL

In the science of gastrology we study the ecological niches restaurants inhabit. Take for example MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach, a rich environment fed by the lush ecosystem of John Wayne Airport. Here hotels, restaurants, businesses and air travelers coexist in an intricate web of interdependence so harmonious that an announcer will soon interrupt this column to warn that man is threatening its delicate balance.

Now, MacArthur Boulevard is a great traffic artery with good freeway access. In the same general neighborhood is a stretch of Bristol Street, but this part of Bristol has been environmentally altered by the freeways, turned into the no-organism’s-land where the Corona del Mar Freeway runs to earth. So while MacArthur is grand and multistoried, Bristol around Campus Drive is a sort of tide pool wedged between a golf course and a hive of office buildings that feed on MacArthur and its tributaries to the north, and the restaurants that call Bristol home tend to have names like The Tummy Stuffer.

Recently, though, a big new hotel called the Countryside Inn has decided to create a sort of Continental shelf in this exact spot, a hotel-French restaurant named Le Chateau. In this less-favored niche, it tends to be more reasonably priced than its MacArthur Boulevard equivalents: At lunch, appetizers and salads run $3.50-$5.95, entrees $4.25-$5.25 (plus one steak at $7.95), while at dinner the range is $4.50-$7 and $9.95-$13.95.

Like the hotel it inhabits, Le Chateau is pretty in a low-keyed way. You find it at the far end of a courtyard dominated by a pleasant little fountain, and in good weather, you can eat either outside in this courtyard or in a slightly prim French dining room. Altogether it appears to be a typical, healthy example of its species. The menu is thoroughly old-fashioned, and many of the waiters seem to have one or another foreign accent.

A substantial part of Le Chateau’s metabolism is based on shellfish, either in the form of the main ingredient, as in prawns a l’ail (not bad, though I’ve had them with more garlic), or in at least one case as part of a sauce. I can’t say for sure I taste the crayfish in the sauce Nantua that accompanies the fancy fish meatballs called quenelles, but with its distinct herb flavor, it is a livelier version than most Nantuas in our local biosphere. Where shellfish meets cream sauce, Le Chateau has its survival skills perfectly honed. The soupe aux mollusques (this is a menu that puts an e on soupe even in English) is rich and saffrony and the coquille sautee, emphasizing scallops, is likewise but with a mushroom motif.

A rather good appetizer is oddly called “prawns, pamplemousse. “ It can be a little variable. Once I just couldn’t find the grapefruit sections that were supposed to come with it, and it seemed to be garnished with prosciutto, but at a later meal the grapefruit was indubitably there and it was garnished with a nice bit of smoked salmon. The avocado sauce was always suave and elegant.

This kitchen makes good pates. One of its favorites is a garlic and black pepper flavored version that tastes remarkably like crumbly salami. There’s also an exceptional foie gras slice on top of the beefsteak in tournedos Rossini, one of the most successful dishes. ( T our nedos is just one of several steaks. There’s a crafty filet with wild mushrooms and tarragon sauce--that is to say, a concatenated version of those two old favorites steak with mushrooms and steak with sauce bearnaise.

And so the menu goes: filet of sole en papillote (a rather bland version), cornish hen with vegetable stuffing, duck with black olives and sweet red peppers in a simple meat glaze sauce. Sweet red peppers are in favor here. They’re found widely, from the house salad to the occasional sauce; a special of halibut with pureed sweet peppers was delicious, though the foreign-accented waiters confusingly insisted that it was a hot pepper sauce--hot from the sauce pan, they meant, not hot as in jalapeno.

The maitre d’ promotes the flambeed fruit desserts (well, they’re his show) and they’re pretty good, a little unusual for including a strong dose of Sambuca among the liqueurs. The usual fruit tartlettes, chocolate mousse (in a chocolate shell), Cointreau cake and related species are easily hunted down from the dessert cart.

Lunch is mostly sandwiches and salads, of course. To judge from the conversations you overhear--guys hashing out the computer system to buy for their office at one table, whispered gossip at the next--at least during the daytime, Le Chateau has already managed to lure some wildlife from the office building hive to the north.

LE CHATEAU, COUNTRYSIDE INN 325 Bristol St., Newport Beach

(714) 968-2999

Open for lunch and dinner daily. American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa accepted.