Retro Nouvelle

Back in the days when French food was French food and Japanese food was raw fish, Lyon was one of the first of the Japanese-French places. People drove miles to sit around the counter of the crowded former sushi bar and watch chef Tadayoshi Matsuno saute scallops and pan-grill fillets--often applauding a particularly tricky-looking dish. There were incredibly cheap lunch specials too, worth the 10-minute trip from downtown.

Here were codified the conventions of L.A. Japanese-French food: the new-age music, the too-classical French sauces sparked with bits of scallion, the plate of rice alongside, the soy marinade, the chicken Cordon Bleu that turned out to be something like a tasty chicken variant of the Japanese fried pork dish tonkatsu . Here too were the film guys and Westside entertainment lawyers who later went on to populate Matsuhisa and Chaya Brasserie. For the generation of Angelenos who had formed its taste for refined cuisine in sushi bars rather than in French restaurants, Lyon was something of a revelation.

Several years ago, Lyon abandoned its side-street location for a larger space in Pasadena, then sputtered and closed a while after that--the place really never attracted its old customers, and not enough new ones flocked to eat what was, after all, yesterday’s cuisine. (The Japanese-French restaurant Chabuya and the Japanese-French-Chinese restaurant C’est Fan Fan prospered in the former quarters.)

And Lyon was gone, until it popped up a few weeks ago in another converted sushi bar as Grill Lyon, in a mini-mall on the edge of Little Tokyo, its food suddenly as nostalgic as potpie and meat loaf in a Los Angeles restaurant scene dominated by rustic Italian cooking.

It’s a blast from the past, Grill Lyon: cute portions on handsome Mikasa plates, lakes of delicate brown sauce and seas of tart beurre blanc , bubbly seafood gratins, puffy Japanese-baked baguettes, barks of irasshaimase to anybody who wanders in the door. The same battered copper pans hang behind the counter, and the same furrowed expressions adhere to the faces of the chefs. Most fish is still garnished with pan-seared scallops. The wine list features the same kind of crisp, inexpensive California Chardonnays it always has. A few of the old customers are usually on hand too, especially before an event at the Temporary Contemporary down the street.

What you eat at Grill Lyon is pretty much what you’d expect to eat, attractive, slimmed-down versions of dishes from a gauzy nouvelle-cuisine ideal of a 1955 Parisian bistro. There are pates, of course--a dense terrine packed with big pieces of duck and duck liver, and a rubbery seafood pate, each served with a small, pungently dressed green salad--and there are silky chunks of raw salmon cured with lime. A light cream of mussel soup is mildly curried; a delicate cream of vegetable soup sings with the flavors of carrot and stock. Seafood salad features mostly scallops tossed with the house green salad, and another appetizer, shrimp and scallops Portuguese, features the sauteed seafood in a brisk, spicy tomato sauce.

Salmon is grilled, served with chopped tomato and a tart butter sauce, cooked through--no fashionably rare fish here--but of clear, fresh flavor. Big scallops are sauteed just until their edges are seared crisp, then sauced with lemon butter. Slabs of poached halibut, so tender they threaten to fall apart at the touch of a fork, come with a syrupy reduction of white wine and stock. Filet mignon is pan-grilled, then served with a brown sauce. All of it is fine; Lyon is a decent, quick place to stop before an event at the Music Center or the Japan-America Theater, though it’s not particularly cheap at dinner.

But somehow I prefer lunch at Lyon, when complete meals--including salad and a bowl of the cream of vegetable soup--run about a third of the price, and the entrees are simple and good: fork-tender filet mignon fried like a veal cutlet; creamy seafood gratin that seethes like Vesuvius when it comes out of the oven; wonderful pasta tossed with scallops and cream.

Grill Lyon, 424 East 2nd St. (in Honda Plaza), Little Tokyo, (213) 620-1223. Open Monday-Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Monday-Saturday, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Beer and wine. Validated lot parking. Mastercard and Visa accepted. Lunch for two, food only, $13-$18; dinner for two, food only, $30-$40.