RESTAURANT REVIEW : Robaire’s Offers Remembrance of Paris Past

Robaire’s was about the only real French restaurant in town in the ‘50s, when not so many Americans had been to France. To its credit it never abused its position the way many French restaurants did in New York, or more than one continental place did in L.A.: There was no insufferable maitre d’ standing behind a velvet rope.

Au contraire . Robaire’s offered a vision of Paris as a city of gentle romance rather than of imperious haute cuisine, a place where policemen rode bicycles. A place where lovers holding balloons rode bicycles, too, and kindly old Frenchmen wearing berets gave them wise, indulgent advice.

It was the sweet dream of a Ludwig Bemelmans book or a Maurice Chevalier movie, and even today it’s more or less Bemelmans time at Robaire’s. The place is still a sort of stage set of the streets of Paris, with red awnings sticking out from imaginary shops and quaint, mansard-roofed buildings painted on the walls in the delicate, careless manner that used to be called Gallic. (I deeply suspect the blatantly non-French “shop owner’s” names on some of the buildings are actually names of regular customers.)

But in the late ‘60s came wave after wave of intense foodie-ism, and Robaire’s was no longer a beacon of Frenchness in the dark. Robaire’s is basically a neighborhood place now. A lot of groups here look like decent folk up from Hancock Park for, say, the traditional sophisticated birthday dinner for a 15-year-old daughter.

-- --

So how does the food stand up? The dinner menu is resolutely old-fashioned: chicken au vin , omelets, lots of things in cream sauce, the once de rigueur frogs’ legs. The wine list is printed on the menu, as restaurants used to do when there weren’t many wines available in the first place. The one real exoticism is a Tunisian couscous dinner that is served on the last Wednesday of every month, and is very popular--I’ve never had a chance to try it.

Still, the old standards are carefully made. The onion soup is a large mug of strong beef broth with well-cooked onions in it, topped by a piece of bread with a rather thick layer of cheese. It’s a shade on the salty side, but otherwise everything an onion soup should be. The seafood is solid here, as in the appetizer of shrimp in a very garlicky sherry sauce, and I’ve had a special of very fresh mussels in the sort of broth of white wine, butter and onions that many a French home cook would choose.

But seafood Daniel (named for another customer, I’ll bet the farm) shows why a lot of people moved on from this kind of cooking to the newer, more nouvelle styles. It has scallops, shrimps and so on in a cream sauce with browned cheese on top, meaning it’s exactly what people used to expect, or fear, French food to be--rich and fussy and bland.

There are quite a few dishes in this fussy tradition, such as sweetbreads in a puff pastry shell (good puff pastry, by the way). The one enduringly attractive thing about this sort of cooking is that it is a very good foil for the most elegant French wines, but alas, the wine list is tres petite . (Robaire’s does allow you to bring your own wine.)

There’s an occasional dinner entree of a more peasanty nature, such as the cassoulet, which includes a bit of lamb as well as some very smoky ham and a rich, skinless sausage with the white beans. Lunchtime, though, is when Robaire’s gets into heartier, more exotic food. It has more omelets and more dishes in puff pastry, but also an appetizer of Tunisian lamb sausages ( merguez ), which are flavored with red pepper, cumin and a couple of sweet spices, and come with stewed zucchini, peppers and tomatoes.

-- --

Of course, lunchtime is also time for les sandwiches , including le hamburger . This is the sort of Frenchified burger that French restaurants took to making in the ‘50s--parsley gets mixed in the ground meat, which is formed into a long and thickish patty and served in a French roll. The menu refers mysteriously to a secret sauce, which tastes to me somewhat like A-1, maybe mixed with some meat juices, but in any case this is a very good sandwich.

The most exotic sandwich, and the most nearly trendy thing on the menu, is the lamb sandwich. The lamb sauce is rendered a bit austere by some green peppercorns, bringing the menu up to about 1972, but it’s certainly delicious.

Among the desserts, the modestly named apple tart is actually a tarte tatin with the apples not cooked very dark. It’s excellent, though, sugary and buttery with a bit of tart apricot glaze on top. In its way, the best dessert is the chocolate mousse, a mere wisp of a mousse, a dark froth that evaporates in the mouth leaving a persistent dark chocolate flavor behind.

The rest are French pastries like Napoleons and similar concoctions made of chocolate and almond praline, some cheesecakes served in glass dessert cups, and a chocolate cup filled with strawberries, ice cream and thick whipped cream; rich, tasty and not quite imaginative.

Robaire’s is about 37 years old now. It looks as if it could stick around toujours if it wanted.

Recommended dishes: onion soup, $3; merguez sausage (lunch), $5; sweetbreads in feuillete, $14; lamb sandwich (lunch), $8.50; chocolate mousse, $3.

Robaire’s, 348 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles. (213) 931-1246. Open for lunch 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, dinner from 5 to 11 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $33 to $78.