RESTAURANT REVIEW : Haute Fishing Camp Cuisine at Saddle Peak

You know the Saddle Peak, that ancient, weathered hunting lodge hunkered down in the mountains halfway between the freeway and the beach, the bone-white spires of the new Hindu temple and the precipitous Alpine gorge of Malibu Canyon? It seems like the sort of place where you might have gnawed buffalo burgers as a child, wondering if the costly pheasant under glass your dad wouldn’t let you order was as wonderful and exotic as it looked (it wasn’t), or if you could con an aunt into sneaking you a sip of her highball or Ramos gin fizz (you could).

It used to be a slightly seedier place, a run-down watering hole amid a landscape of spring-green hills and muddy, rain-engorged streams, an oasis of attitude that served food about as good as it had to be at a restaurant with a view, an ultimate destination on a scenic Sunday drive. Now that the lodge is refurbished it looks more ancient than ever, with manufactured macho and an expensively acquired patina of old Western money that would make Ralph Lauren bust a seam in envy.

A crowd of affluent non-vegetarians swarm in, a crowd that you suspect would bring their rifles everywhere if gunracks didn’t look so recherche mounted on a new BMW, and there are more fur coats than you’ve seen outside of an opening night at the Met. An odd assortment of music industry types show up, obscure Topanga songstresses with ironed black hair and men who wear gold chains and the sort of three-piece, brushed-denim suits that Paul Anka made famous in 1976.

The cuisine, also refurbished, tends, as you might expect, toward haute fishing-camp food. The dinner menu features perfect venison, fresh coho salmon, delicious pan-fried brook trout, carpetbagger steak stuffed with oysters and manly Texas wild boar that tastes like a veal chop forced to endure ten weeks of Marine boot camp. A thick, leather binder lists more brawny California reds than an ardent carnivore could guzzle in a lifetime.

There’s dim light, shabby-genteel oils, mounted guns and well-worn books by the yard, which is handy if you feel like browsing through “Forever Amber” or the Catholic Encyclopedia over coffee. There are banisters made from thick, polished gnarls of vine held together with leather straps. On chill days, the faint tang of smoke and horses in the parking lot is so perfect that you suspect the owners have found a way to simulate not only the look but even the smell of old Cheyenne.

Dinners here are exquisite, especially at the magic moment when dusk shrouds the mountains, but brunch is the quintessential Saddle Peak meal both for the view and for those of us who don’t relish driving the dark, twisty road back while under the influence of Manhattans, Zinfandel and port. Brunch is a prix fixe affair; given Saddle Peak’s pricey dinner menu, $19.75 for two courses and coffee is almost a bargain.

A large dog will nuzzle you as you grasp the half-antler that you pull to open the front door. Though you have made reservations a week in advance, you are herded into a smoke-filled bar area where you spend an uncomfortable twenty minutes staring into a strong Bloody Mary before you are ushered to a lovely third floor aerie that is overseen by a friendly stuffed herd of antelopes and elk.

Good things come to those who wait: a wicker basket full of warm, terrific pumpkin muffins, apricot danish, corn rolls, country biscuits, miniature croissants, chocolatines and more, with little jars of jam and a brick of sweet butter on the side. A first course might be a martini glass filled with champagne-doused strawberries, or a too-sweet bowl of chilled stewed rhubarb.

Strawberry soup is refreshing, though creamy enough to clog the arteries of a marathon runner; a beautifully composed salad of fresh lettuces and herbs is dressed with a good, bracing vinaigrette, but is shot through with twice too much fresh tarragon. Go for the onion-wild mushroom pie--if the magazine W had found a quiche that tasted this good, the ‘70s would never have gone out of fashion.

Main courses seem to be storybook variations on the perfect American breakfast: poached eggs with crab cakes and caviar; fried eggs with broiled buffalo; creamy scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and chives. There are hi-top poached eggs atop red-flannel hash, a stupendous scarlet melange of diced beets, potatoes, onion and ham that I hadn’t seen outside a cookbook before--word made flesh!--and there is a slab of salty, strong-tasting country ham whose muskiness is set off perfectly by a woody hint of mesquite from its grilling. (Avoid the pancakes here; they’re quite overcooked.) Thick, juicy pork chops are seared black on the outside, nestling a savory mound of sliced sweet potatoes sauteed with apples and spices; soft, Creole-like veal sausages abut a smoke-flavored pile of stewed okra, tomatoes and ham.

Saddle Peak Lodge, 419 Cold Canyon Rd., Calabasas. (818) 340-6029. Brunch Saturdays and Sundays, dinner nightly. Full bar. Valet parking. MasterCard and Visa accepted. Brunch for two, food only, $39.50.