San Diego Spotlight : Bagatel Is No Mere Pittance, and Sometimes Rightly So

Bagatel should have opened two or three years ago, when there was a whole lot of shaking going on in the economy and people couldn’t pull out their gold cards fast enough.

The place is pricey. With a single exception, first courses top $10 and rise as high as $25 (for fresh foie gras , an unavoidably costly item), and entrees run from a relatively modest $14.95 to $29. Those in the mood for more can choose among four multi-course dinners that range from $27 to a most impressive $59, which buys a six-course spread that includes foie gras , poached Scottish salmon and roast squab teased with bits of black truffle.

But to regard this new La Jolla restaurant primarily in terms of the check is similar to remarking that Rembrandts certainly don’t come cheap these days. This is not to say that Bagatel has a culinary competence comparable to the artistic abilities of an Old Master. But it does occupy a niche of its very own, and of its own making.

Bagatel announces itself with a row of trees hung with thousands of miniature lights that sparkle and wink among the branches and suggest that this stretch of Fay Avenue more properly belongs among the Grandes Boulevards in Paris. The restaurant itself, a stunning makeover of what used to be a Chinese eatery, is a little cold in its use of marble, other stone and mirrors, but is undeniably handsome, and elegant in its fine table settings and in the gracious distances between tables. The service goes hand-in-kid-glove with the formal decor and mood.

The telling difference between Bagatel and the most French restaurants in this country is that it really is French. The menu offers the dishes being served in some of the better restaurants in France today, and it is a challenging list that demands close reading and thoughtful consideration. At Bagatel, nine young chefs, all graduates of one or more of the Michelin-starred restaurants of France, toil together on each preparation in a complicated ballet that is visible through the glass wall, but not easily followed.

There is a fine lightness to the dishes, achieved through the use of intensely reduced stocks as sauces, enriched or smoothed sometimes with a little butter but universally devoid of cream. Adding to the intensity is the use of fresh herbs, garlic, olive oil, bell peppers and other items of resolute flavor.

An insistence upon grand presentation at times results in dishes that one is reticent to disturb, notably in an amazing arrangement of fresh egg pasta, sweetbreads and lobster medallions in which the pasta, woven to resemble the body of a Maine lobster, had the beast’s head and tail at either end and the claws posed realistically alongside. The twin meats overlapped atop the noodles, and the ersatz creature waded in a chocolate-colored sauce that tasted ever so deeply of lobster essence.

Lobster swims freely through the menu, appearing among the appetizers as a cold salad bedded on sauteed spinach--like everything here, the dish is more complicated than the description implies--as part of an assemblage of shellfish cooked in aromatic vegetable bouillon, placed atop a lissome puree of fresh peas and moistened with lobster-based sauce; in the “ raviolis magiques “ (pasta squares filled with chunks of lobster and minced vegetables) served in a deep bowl filled with briny lobster consomme, and, as an entree, in a gratin of lobster mousse and chunks, glazed with a sabayon (a light version of hollandaise) and a sprinkling of Parmesan.

Foie gras , among the choicest and costliest of the world’s foods, generally appears in America in the form of tinned pate. But Bagatel serves a lavish portion of the fresh fowl liver, cautiously sauteed and arranged on a coronet of butter-crisped slices of baby potatoes. This may sound precious, but it is exquisite, as is the sauce that dresses the garnish of bitter salad greens.

Vegetables, all of the finest quality and all treated with remarkable style, perform essential roles in virtually every entree. Green cabbage, a favorite here, acts as a wrapper for the miniature lobsters known as langoustines , which are dressed with herbs and lobster roe and roasted in the oven. Scallops done in the style of a cassoulette (technically a complex bean casserole) peer out from an assemblage of celery, lima beans, fennel, baby carrots, onions and zucchini. A stew of herbed lima beans fills an eggplant cup that accompanies grilled halibut, and a puree of cauliflower does the same for the tiny yellow squash served alongside a rosemary-scented, oven-braised medallion of veal.

The menu favors seafood over red meat, although meat hardly is ignored. A poached beef filet is dressed with marrow and red wine sauce, and garlic-studded lamb loin is roasted in a casing of fresh, flaky pastry. A filet of duck breast, sauteed rather rare, sliced thinly and arranged the length of the plate, included Sauternes in its deglazing sauce and was served a la barigoule , or with a fat, fresh artichoke heart filled with glazed pearl onions.

The set dinners--which are not all that set, since diners can substitute dishes from the a la carte lists--include such notable offerings as a boned rack of lamb rolled around a stuffing of lamb sweetbreads, spinach and pine nuts, and served on a bed of mixed forest mushrooms, and a “terrine” of thinly sliced sea bass filet layered with saffroned aioli, or pungent garlic mayonnaise.

Desserts, prepared only when ordered, are as light as the entrees and center on fruits. A clever conceit typical of this kitchen is the thin decorations of meringue baked directly on the dessert plates, which may feature such items as a semi-frozen pistachio Bavarian cream and a gratin of blueberries baked under custard sauce.

The restaurant strikes a single sour note with the wine list, which is relatively brief for a menu of this complexity and seems overpriced at times. Moderately priced bottles are virtually nonexistent on this list.

BAGATEL

7612 Fay Ave., La Jolla

551-2000

Dinner and lunch or brunch Tuesday through Sunday, closed Mondays

Entrees $14.95 to $29.00. Dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine each, tax and tip, about $100 to $150.

Credit cards accepted