RESTAURANT REVIEW : Dale’s: A New French Revolution in West Hollywood

For those West Hollywood folk who want a friendly, unpretentious, imaginative little bistro at their disposal, Dale’s Bistro may be a dream come true.

It’s a storefront restaurant, actually two small storefronts, merged and updated with enough Post-Modern architectural flourishes--a linoleum floor that looks like textured sheet metal, a green marbleized column, some swoops and curves in the plasterwork--to put us firmly in the 1990s. There is also decent Abstract Expressionism on the walls; cheerful French music, and enough bistro paraphernalia--a propeller fan; small, dark bentwood chairs; dark wood wainscotting, and a potted palm--to set us firmly in casual, nostalgic Francophilia.

But don’t get too comfy envisioning the dark, comfortable anachronisms of Left Bank nostalgia cuisine.

Tonight’s menu, Dale’s Beast Row, reveals a playful scuffle between contemporary California cooking and old-style French American Bistro. A Caesar salad is reinforced with radicchio and endive. Les escargots are wrapped in won tons. The steak Diane snags a Jack Daniels sauce. And a classic onion soup winds up with three cheeses--one of them, we are told, is goat.

Other old French American cliches are similarly exploded: There are no rude waiters, no temperamental chef. Our waitress is a sweet-tempered young woman and Dale Payne himself ambles around the dining room chatting with customers and pouring coffee and dashing back to the kitchen with precision timing to finish orders.

The thing is, Payne can afford to reinvent the snail, fraternize with the customers, put crayons and butcher paper on his tables, enjoy himself on the job and otherwise push and bend all the so-called rules of restaurant management. Because when it comes right down to it, the man can cook.

He has, in fact, cooked in good restaurants all over town--Michael’s, Spago, Bistango, Les Anges. And so, a soft, creamy, perfectly grilled cake of polenta comes with sharp-tasting shards of olives and roasted peppers and a lively buttermilk pesto sauce. The fried calamari has a delightfully spiced breading and a peppery, sinus-clearing rouille. Both the Caesar and the mixed baby green salad are fresh and well-dressed. A chicken gumbo soup is earthy and spicy and totally satisfying.

Entrees come with generous portions of wild rice pilaf and ratatouille, both of which fill the plate but don’t particularly excite the palate. The grilled shrimp were plump and so fresh they made you want to sing sea chanteys; unfortunately, the curry sauce they were served with was vague and uninteresting. A roast lamb with mole was a noble experiment; the classic southern Mexican pepper-chocolate sauce tended to bring out all the raucous gaminess of the lamb, and it might have better pleased those whose tastes run wilder than mine.

Otherwise, all the other entrees I tasted were superb. My personal favorite was the chicken roasted with Provencal herbs and served with a grainy mustard sauce. The meat was juicy, the sauce was sassy without being overpowering. Also lovely was a pork loin with red onion confit ; the meat was cooked so well it provided the satisfying succulence found in good veal--without exacting any veal-eating guilt.

It’s tough, after two courses at Dale’s, to have room for dessert. We did manage a slice of decent apple tarte tatin one night, but for the most part were happy ending up with a cup of delicious decaf and the opportunity to finish the crayon drawings begun before dinner.

Dale’s Bistro, 361 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, (213) 659-3996. Open for lunch Tuesday-Friday 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday 6-10:30 p.m. Beer and wine. Parking in rear. Dinner for two, food only, $30-$50.