DAVID NELSON / ON RESTAURANTS : Master Chef’s Art Enhances Rancho Santa Fe Restaurant

That master chef Claude Segal’s arrival among us some months ago has gone largely unremarked may say something about the tone of the times.

Then again, the fact that little comment has been made about Segal’s efforts in the kitchen of La Tapenade, the dining room at John Gardiner’s Rancho Valencia Resort in Rancho Santa Fe, may relate more to this luxury hotel’s remoteness. Rancho Valencia is tucked away on a side street very near the entrance to Fairbanks Ranch, and the “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome may be at work.

In any case, Segal is the sort of chef whose arrival would have set food circles buzzing a few years back. At a relatively young age, he assumed the toque of executive chef at Maxim’s in Paris, and later made a name for himself in Los Angeles as Wolfgang Puck’s replacement at Ma Maison.

Because Segal makes a specialty of luxury ingredients, the tab for three courses is high.

He has introduced an interesting double menu. The left page lists relatively plain starters, entrees and desserts, and may be aimed at hotel guests who have spent the day playing tennis or golf and want something fairly straightforward before toddling off to bed. Oddly enough, this side of the menu is marginally more expensive than the right page, which lists the innovative and often exciting choices.

The right-hand menu, headed by the legend “Claude Segal Presents,” begins with an introductory paragraph which notes that all dishes are Segal’s creations and have been designed “to cater to the diet-conscious tastes of our guests.”

To read even a mention of diet consciousness on a French menu gives one pause, and Segal’s specialty list hardly could be called Spartan. But there certainly is an absence of cream and butter, which is more than made up for by satiny stock reductions, rich wine sauces and dishes infused with the clear, strong flavors of vinegar, shallots, herbs and other potent seasonings.

This notably short menu lists more appetizers than entrees (six versus five); offers two pastas, a course that formerly had no chance of inclusion on formal French menus, and utterly avoids any mention of soup, a course that formerly always enjoyed prominent display on formal French menus.

This also is one of those rare menus that you simply can hand back to the waiter with the request, “bring me anything.” It opens on a grand note with a mille feuille (a sort of puff pastry sandwich) filled with layers of caramelized onions, goat cheese and thinly sliced, poached salmon. Rather than the beurre blanc -type butter sauce that usually would be expected with a dish of this nature, Segal tops the pastry with a coulis , or velvety puree, of delicately seasoned fresh tomatoes.

The disparate elements all come together quite stylishly. While the serving is enormous, and the complication hardly makes it seem “diet-conscious,” it nonetheless is very light. The goat cheese is, of course, a trendy if delicious ingredient, and had Segal paired it with sun-dried tomatoes rather than fresh, he would plunged into the current trendy vernacular. To his credit, he avoided this.

Among the other starters, the simplest is a salad of lettuces from Rancho Santa Fe’s noted Chino’s Farm, moistened with a winter truffle dressing. There are also a plate of seared, fresh foie gras (goose or duck liver, not pate, and a most delicate product) with a subtly sweet-sour sauce of wild currants, honey and aged vinegar; a rustic, robust terrine (this is a pate, of sorts) of eggplant and roasted bell peppers, and a small Maine lobster salad in an herbed ginger dressing.

The most spectacular choice, however, may be the warm salad of seared, sashimi-grade tuna coated on the edges with black sesame seeds. A small, round log of fish is quickly cooked at intense heat and then sliced, so that every piece features a black exterior, a narrow inner rim of white, cooked fish and a brilliantly crimson center of still-raw, melting-textured tuna. The soy and vinegar dressing is quite sharp, and notably salty, but thoroughly in tune with the fish.

What is most interesting, and most certainly unintended, is that the sesame-coated tuna tastes quite like the very best Southern fried chicken. This perception might not be universally shared and probably sounds silly, but it’s true; such unplanned results do occasionally come about in cuisine. The garnish of sliced Chinese cabbage topped with crunchy, deep fried scallions was absolutely perfect for this dish.

The pasta choices, both unsampled, are probably the most pretentious sounding entrees. The first, a “homemade ravioli of won ton” with crayfish and chervil, takes a Chinese-French approach that certainly may work; the sashimi, after all, is a Japanese-French hybrid. The “organic caramelized carrots and onions dressed in lasagna” seems designed to add a vegetarian option to the menu and may also be a good pairing, because a casserole of slivered carrots and onions can be surprisingly delicious.

The perfection of cooking continued with an entree of John Dory--a cumbersome-looking but delicately flavored fish--wrapped in emerald-green cabbage leaves (the menu mentioned crisped scallions, but these were absent) and sauced with a reduced, wonderfully perfumed lobster stock. Delicate at first bite and quietly intense thereafter, this was a dish of fine sophistication.

A rather nice arrangement of mallard duck prepared in three distinct manners was marred by its garnishes, a pile of fresh but very plain noodles (diet consciousness or not, a potato cake or gratin would have been ideal) and mounds of utterly cold and rubbery wild mushrooms. The mix of mushrooms was luxurious, to be sure, but they seemed straight from the can and were disagreeable in the extreme.

The duck itself, however, was masterfully done, and consisted of a fan of rare slices of grilled breast in a heady wine sauce, chunks of rich, moist confit (duck simmered in its own fat and juices) and a single, delicious slice of sauteed foie gras.

The remaining entrees are a pepper-crusted, pan-fried sea bass in sea urchin sauce; a “mosaic,” or woven arrangement, of venison garnished with onion ravioli and roasted lamb salad with a confit (rather like a jam, in this case) of shallots. The other, more basic side of the menu offers five entrees, all grilled, including salmon in Pinot Noir sauce, a veal chop with a straw potato cake and dry aged New York sirloin garnished with marrow.

There are even two dessert lists, the first rich but plain, and the second, the Segal special, less rich but more elegant. The baked-to-order caramelized apple tart, which in theory takes about 10 minutes to arrive, is a feather-light round of crisp puff pastry covered with a thin layer of sugar-browned apples that is well worth a wait of even the 20 minutes it took to appear on a recent evening. Among other choices are a plate of assorted fresh sorbets and berries that is served for two, and a warm mille feuille of pears and ginger. The menu does not mention a cheese plate, but the kitchen will prepare a finely arranged selection upon request.

In terms of style, La Tapenade seems less formal than when it opened in 1989, but it is not informal. A year ago, a jacket requirement for men was mentioned when the reservation was made; no such mention was made recently, but not a man in the place was without coat and tie. The service is gracious, willing and generally well-informed (even though the servers consistently referred to the mille feuilles as “ mille fleurs ,” which means “a thousand flowers” and when capitalized is the name of a chic Rancho Santa Fe restaurant), and the dining rooms airy and handsomely appointed. The wine list seems to have been assembled with considerable thought, and there are a fair number of bottles in the affordable range.

LA TAPENADE: John Gardiner’s Rancho Valencia Resort, 5921 Valencia Circle, Rancho Santa Fe 756-1123;Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily Entrees $17 to $27. Dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, about $100 to $130; Credit cards are accepted