RESTAURANT REVIEW : Belly Up to the Salad Bar at Le Savarin

“They made you pay by the leaf!” says a friend of mine in real horror. What he remembers about Sweden isn’t white nights and pretty girls but the lack of vegetables. The biggest shock of his life was going to a Stockholm restaurant where salad was priced according to the quantity of lettuce.

He concluded that people were not meant to live in Sweden. I imagine the Swedes might disagree, but it’s safe to say that Californians, who think of salad as a constitutional entitlement, were probably not meant to live there. From our point of view, the right part of Europe is clearly the one sensible enough to have climate like our own, namely the Mediterranean.

So it would seem that Tony DiLembo, formerly of La Bruschetta and then private cook to Barbra Streisand, has a good idea in Le Savarin, a pretty little Beverly Hills restaurant with high ceilings and slightly inappropriate quilts on the walls. California-compatible Mediterranean food--French, Italian, Greek and Syrian--is what he serves.

This is most obvious at the “salad bar,” a display of cold vegetable items all available for take-out as well. Just about everything in it is wonderful, even that cliche tabbouleh, a way of eating mint and parsley which health foodies in this country have turned into a way of eating bulgur wheat. A good tabbouleh should be no more than one quarter wheat by volume, sharpened with plenty of lemon juice and mellowed with good olive oil, as it is here.

And so on. The hummus and the baba ghannuj have plenty of sesame, garlic and lemon, the rice-stuffed vegetables (grape leaves, cabbage, oriental eggplant) are better than you find in many a Near Eastern restaurant, a pasta salad includes perfectly cooked squid rings.

And when you leave the salad bar for the menu, there’s a Lebanese “lentil soup” that’s not the stodgy kind we’re familiar with but a cold, lemony broth with Swiss chard and only a couple of lentils, the perfect thing in hot weather. Lamb chops are fiercely grilled with lots of rosemary and garlic. Even the penne arrabbiata, which sounds kind of boring--just pasta in a sauce of tomato, garlic and onions--is both lively and soothing.

DiLembo puts his own touch on some dishes. In his stunning chicken shish kebab there are not only cherry tomatoes between the pillowy pieces of chicken breast but also shiitake mushrooms reconstituted in lemon juice and the odd mint leaf. At lunch a “tuna sandwich” of fresh grilled tuna comes with a sharp, garlicky mayonnaise sauce and a startling sprig of rosemary.

But he doesn’t always hit the mark. Just as the rosemary might be a little too much for the tuna, the jumbo shrimp and asparagus tips with saffron linguini is so drenched with saffron that it tastes soapy. And I have to say, flavoring your fresh bread sticks with cumin just makes them musty-tasting.

My dessert coach has pointed out to me that if there’s one area where the Mediterranean takes a back seat to places like Vienna, it’s dessert. Le Savarin does not have the best instinct for pastries. There’s a good napoleon with a custard filling, but the chou paste in the eclairs and the cream puffs is usually overdone (once after a meal, though, they brought out a tiny cream puff and a miniature chocolate eclair that were perfect), and some of the other items, like a sort of tightly rolled jelly roll, are not terribly exciting. Stick to the vegetables, that’s her recommendation.

Le Savarin, 9428 Brighton Way, Beverly Hills. (213) 278-4678. Open for lunch and dinner Mondays through Saturdays. Wine and beer. Street parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $40 to $65.