Restaurant Review : Julienne in San Marino: A Love That Never Ends

It’s funny about Julienne in San Marino. I love it and then I drift away, forgetting all about it, and then someone mentions it, and I go back, and fall in love all over again.

Tucked in one of the prettiest neighborhoods in Southern California, Julienne, with its small outdoor patio, pots of herbs and crumb-begging sparrows, is the San Gabriel Valley’s closest approximation of a quiet French cafe. There have been times when Julienne was where I went for coffee, where I took my sister for her birthday lunch, where I brought friends from out of town for a sprawling afternoon conversation over dessert. When I was sick, friends brought me Julienne’s soup and fresh Caesar salads and slabs of rosemary-raisin bread.

Julienne, however, may function best as a stopgap: After a visit to the Huntington Library and Gardens, when one isn’t quite ready to relinquish the garden’s dreamy opulence for the freeway, a sandwich or cup of tea in the cafe can prolong the pleasure, and a bag of takeout can bring some of the grand life home.

This time I’d drifted off so long I found upon returning a separate, not-so-new takeout store adjacent to the cafe. Julienne may not be open for dinner, but taking dinner home is certainly the next best thing. In a hurry, one can grab a quart of broccoli-romaine or another frozen soup, frozen chicken pot pie or seafood ravioli, or fresh green salads in clear plastic boxes, ready to dress. Other dishes are served up fresh by the pound: salads, entrees, stunning desserts. Picnics for the Hollywood Bowl or other assignations can be packed with advance notice.

Owner Sue Campoy, who started out as a caterer, cooks food that is cleverly conceived, holds well in transit and is, in general, some of the best takeout food around. It also has the great, haunting visual appeal of food in old still lifes and trompe l’oeil , as if Campoy has studied the food in paintings by Caravaggio and Jean Baptiste Chardin. From the takeout counter, pick any of the chicken with confidence: a roasted half of rosemary chicken, say, or plump, lemony breasts with herbs tucked under the skin. Poached salmon may even be better: so cool and moist, we almost forget to try the cilantro pesto dressing packed with it. Salads are a hard call only because they’re all equally packed with flavor. I vote for a couscous with currants, or fresh ripe Roma tomatoes tossed with basil and chewy bits of pancetta. Best to buy more caramelized red onions with Gorgonzola than you first think prudent; they go fast, especially as an accompaniment to cold chicken. Grilled asparagus misted with red pepper vinaigrette goes with anything, as do earthy roasted red potatoes with garlic and mint.

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Let me make the dessert choice easy. Chocolate lovers must have the chocolate-espresso biscuits, a profoundly dark, moist cookie encased in the thinnest, most fragile crust. For fruit lovers there’s berry and nectarine cobbler. Ice cream fans must request a quart of hand-packed, locally made Fosselman’s ice cream: The blackberry sorbet is the best fat-free frozen dessert of any type I’ve ever tasted. Cookie mavens might be tempted by large oatmeal raisin or chocolate-chip cookies, but they’re a little too sweet and salty: Stick with a pecan cookie that must contain more ground nuts than flour.

The cafe is as charming and busy as ever. Weekdays one sits among matrons and their daughters and maybe a few local business people. Weekends, families pile out of Volvo station wagons and Jaguars for breakfast and brunch. The service is intelligent and smooth, les salads , les plats e les sandwiches reliably, seductively delicious.

I had a few quibbles: Peaches on an otherwise perfect salad of greens, pecans and Gorgonzola, were not quite dead ripe, and a too-sweet hollandaise with swordfish tasted like melted lemon curd. I also had some great meals there, one a bowl of plump, spicy turkey ravioli, another the juicy roast lamb sandwich with caramelized onions and avocado.

* Julienne, 2649 Mission St., San Marino, (818) 441-2299. Restaurant open Monday-Saturday for breakfast and lunch, takeout open Monday-Friday 9:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. No alcohol. Master Card and Visa accepted. Lunch for two, food only, $21-$59.