Le Meridien’s Marius Still One of County’s Best

Marius at Le Meridien in Coronado is now well into its second year of a culinary arrangement unique in San Diego County and continues to be an elegant bastion of guileless, soulful and precise French cooking.

Like dining rooms in many of the French-run Le Meridien hotels, Marius enjoys the services of a consulting chef from one of the relative handful of restaurants in France to have been awarded one or more Michelin Guide stars. The consulting chef, Jany Gleize, is among the small galaxy of leading talents in Provence; he and his family operate La Bonne Etape in Chateau-Arnoux, a small restaurant-cum-hotel in the rocky countryside above Avignon. Guests on the gastronomic joy-rides common in France travel there to feast on quail perfumed with thyme and rabbit loin rolled around lavender leaves, and then sleep over to indulge in an equally lavish lunch before motoring on.

Gleize comes to Coronado several times a year to write a new seasonal menu for Marius and train the kitchen in its preparation. The role of sous-chef has been assumed by the American-born Patrick Glennon, who is all of 26 and whose five years of training in some of the better kitchens in France has plated his Connecticut accent with a Gallic overlay.

Gleize and Glennon recently huddled to work out the details of the winter menu, which will be served at least through the end of March. It includes such gems as an amazing ragout of asparagus and venison in black pepper sauce with a mannered puree of celery root and apples.

The sun-soaked flavors of Provence pervade every dish with an intensity that, rather perversely, is both insistent and beguiling. Herbs and aromatic vegetables enter nearly every dish, although garlic, which generally is understood as the common denominator of Provencal cooking, rarely steps out from the background.

Marius is quietly grand and very expensive, with starters priced up to $12 and entrees as high as $32. It is one of the two or three best restaurants in the county, and, although approaching it in the mood of dining-as-theater would be to miss the point--it is too lighthearted and French for that--it is well to regard dinner here as a rare opportunity to sample excellent French fare offered in much the same manner as on its home turf.

The details, beyond the formal service and elegant decor, are myriad. The restaurant’s own baker prepares the excellent walnut and olive breads, as well as the tiny mignardises --cookies, truffles and thumbnail-sized pastries--that accompany the check. Marius follows the charming habit of grand restaurants in France by sending a mouthful of something very special as an edible prologue to the main performance. Glennon varies this amuse-gueule (“palate-amuser”) nightly, and recently offered small daubes glaces of stewed lamb encased in melting jelly. This is a Provencal classic, rich in herbs and bursting in flavor, which Glennon intensified further with a robust tomato vinaigrette. For decoration, a tiny ball of carrot was poised atop the conical mound of daube like some sort of Cubist statement. Clever, barely noticeable gestures like this highlight many dishes.

The two soups are opulent--a rich lobster bouillon and a chilled oyster cream with chives--but the preferred starter would be any of the four cleverly composed appetizers. This list begins with an arrangement of striped bass and salmon in an herbed sauce of sea urchin coral (an arcane ingredient hereabouts, true, but one that brings a briny intensity with it) and pommes d’amour . The warm quail salad that follows is interesting, but less so than the thoroughly Provencal ravioli stuffed with Swiss chard and basil. These plump, tiny rounds are arranged like a Byzantine mosaic over a bed of stiff, basil-rich tomato puree, with fat, chewy, slices of fragrant cepe mushrooms placed in the interstices to complete the pattern.

The very finest starter, however, is the ragout, or “stew” of slim asparagus with tiny turnips and carrots in a lemony beurre montee (thick butter sauce) of impressive virtuousity. The plate’s seemingly casual arrangement blends shapes and colors into a pretty montage, highlighted by an auxiliary stew, placed in a corner of the dish, of chopped cepe mushrooms tossed in a sizzling pan.

The entree list runs to just four fish choices and an equal number of meats, a sufficient selection expanded somewhat by the daily “menu degustation “ that offers five moderately portioned courses on a prix fixe basis. The seafood list includes Maine lobster, poached in seafood bouillon and finished with a butter sauce flavored with four peppers; sauteed tuna, placed on a bed of pureed black olives and topped with a wildly unusual sauce of fruits spiced with a touch of bitter chocolate (this dish repeats from previous Marius menus); braised Norwegian salmon with fennel and stuffed zucchini blossoms, and steamed sturgeon flavored with oregano. This herb would seem too strong for so mild a fish, but in fact the flavors married happily in this stunning presentation, which included a minuscule cube of tomato and a few grains of caviar arranged precisely on each slice of fish. Half-moon-shaped pasta packets stuffed with mild cheeses alternated with the pieces of sturgeon.

The meat list includes roast lamb loin with rosemary and a many-layered cake of vegetables; venison; a regally sized roasted veal chop seasoned with sage and lemon, and a filet of beef that takes quite a different approach from the usual hotel steak. The coriander in the perfect brown sauce that moistens the thick cube of buttery meat makes the difference, and, although the flavor is unexpected with beef, it is also quite successful. The delightful garnish consists of delicate ovals of ratatouille, or Provencal vegetable stew, and exquisite croutons de moelle . Moelle is marrow, and Marius, in a burst of genius, layered plain marrow on top of portions that had been soaked in red wine; with the underlying pillows of butter-crisped bread, this garnish was almost as good as the main attraction.

A handsome presentation of cheeses may be ordered as a cheese course--this would be the French approach--or as an alternative to dessert, which would mean missing some of the baker’s fine offerings. The gianduja chocolate mousse in an orange syrup is dissolutely chocolaty, but there is a sweet that goes much farther into the stratosphere of French dessert making, les macarons chauds et froids . Macaroons require so much labor and knowledge in their production that they rarely appear these days, but Marius makes them, filled with cinnamon ice cream and drenched with bittersweet chocolate sauce.

* MARIUS

Le Meridien, 2000 2nd St., Coronado

435-3032

Dinner served Tuesday through Sunday; closed Monday.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, $130 to $150.