Chef Claude Segal Is Back and He’s Having a Picnic

Los Angeles’ best new restaurant is Picnic, opened two Thursdays ago by chef Claude Segal. The food is terrific, portions are large and the prices, especially for this level of cooking, are easy on the wallet. But be warned: Picnic is a small restaurant and it won’t take much to make it one of the city’s hardest reservations. Already its latticework-topped booths are attracting the sort of hip, beautiful people who can squeeze out the rest of us who are simply hungry.

Segal, who has cooked all over Los Angeles--at Ma Maison, Bistango, Four Oaks, MaBe--has mostly been cooking out of town the last few years. But he’s come back with a menu that is full of delicious things to eat. Salads are wonderful tepee piles of greens and good stuff--maybe crisp sauteed sweetbreads with lots of buttery mushrooms, or salmon and fresh tomatoes with a frizzle of fried sweet potatoes and leeks. Instead of plain steak, Segal takes a culotte cut, divides it into thin medallions that sit in an amazing Pinot Noir reduction and tops it with discs of meaty bone marrow. With this come fried potato pillows, light as air.

Other possibilities: a steak of whitefish covered with a good thick coat of coarse pepper and served on sauteed leeks; a braised veal shank with caramelized onions and carrots; and chicken grilled with lemon, thyme and lavender.

* Picnic, 8771 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 273-1166. Pasta and entrees $10.50 to $18.