New Chef Brings Wit to Rancho Valencia

It isn’t all that easy to create puns from food.

But the French do like their little jokes--they call them betises , and relish every opportunity to deliver one. And Claude Koberle, the newest chef at the Rancho Valencia resort hotel near Rancho Santa Fe, is every inch a Frenchman.

His wit wanders widest in the realm of soups. One supposes from the listing of “wild mushroom cappuccino” that an intense evocation of mushroom essence will be delivered (as it is), but the humorous presentation comes as quite a surprise, since it actually mimics a double cappuccino. Served in a large coffee cup, the soup floats a topping of whipped egg whites that, if flavorless, doubles for the steamed milk froth that crowns Italian coffee. Clever looks aside, this is a marvelously tasty brew, the mushrooms cooked in rich veal stock and lightly, lightly creamed, to create a strong flavor that certainly is good to the last drop. It’s a cuppa joe with class.

In a similar mood, the “consomme of shrimp cocktail” takes the form of an amused French commentary on America’s favorite appetizer (shrimp with cocktail sauce, which a goodly number of French chefs regard as a gastronomic barbarism). Served in a Martini glass garnished with a lime wedge and a “straw” of lemon grass, the soup arrives as a dry melange of minced shrimp and vegetables. After the glass has been placed on the table, the server returns with a pitcher of hot, tomatoed lobster consomme and then fills the glass to the brim. This is happy eating all the way, mildly spicy, richly briny and, as long as one values the amusement factor, quite worth the $6.50 price tag.

Koberle entered Rancho Valencia’s kitchen as the latest in a line of distinguished chefs to pass through what has become a revolving door. The other year, Claude Segal was the star, and last winter, Bradley Ogden, the Bay Area wunderkind of American cuisine, took over as consulting chef and installed a trusted underling to prepare a quintessentially Ogden-esque menu. This situation proved less than satisfactory to the hotel, however, and Koberle recently was hired away from his role as executive chef at the highly regarded Surf ‘n Sand hotel in Laguna Beach.

As a luxury resort, Rancho Valencia has absolute need of a top-quality kitchen, and it seems to have found a happy answer in Koberle. The ambience and service always have been consistently at the top in North County, and the new chef and his imaginative menu place the restaurant among the top three restaurants in the area, along with Mille Fleurs and the El Bizcocho room at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. Needless to say, dinner here is not an inexpensive proposition, but the prices seem quite in line with those charged by other top-notch establishments.

The starters seem the strength of the menu, and Koberle usually supplements them with a daily special or two. Among these recently was an exceptional salad of lamb loin, barely grilled, so that it was something of a lamb sushi but also buttery, sweet and delicious. The Asian flavors in the salad made it spectacular; the thin slices of meat were arranged over tender “spoon” lettuce and a bed of crisp Chinese glass noodles, the whole spiced with a wasabi vinaigrette and wisps of fried ginger and leek.

Other first course choices include a tartare of minced ahi tuna with shredded cucumber and crisp potato slices, sauteed duck liver on a cake of green apples, and a “gazpacho napoleon” of layered minced vegetables and peppers.

Those entrees sampled were frankly less interesting than the opening courses. There was little to argue with in the case of the veal tournedos with a “strudel” (more like an up-ended egg roll, in truth) of pastry filled with wild mushrooms, and the thyme-flavored sauce was likable, good if not brilliant. But the swordfish with smoked tomato sauce just didn’t work; as beautifully done as the disparate elements may have been, they remained disparate, because the sauce, in tandem with the fish, was too like ketchup.

The risotto pancakes that accompanied it were inferior to those served elsewhere. The entree list also includes herbed roast chicken, an osso buco of lamb wrapped in a phyllo dough crust, roasted sea bass with a sharp, olive-based sauce and lamb tenderloin sided with a tart of Mediterranean vegetables.

No slouch in the sweets department, Koberle offers a clafouti (something like a sweetened Yorkshire pudding) flavored with pistachios and finished with grilled, gingered pineapple and a rich chocolate sauce, and a lovely opera cake with walnuts, caramel and espresso-based sauce.

Rancho Valencia Dining Room

Rancho Valencia resort hotel, 5921 Valencia Circle, Rancho Santa Fe.

Calls: 756-3645.

Hours: Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

Cost: Entrees $16.50 to $23.50; dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, $90 to $130.