Camelions: A Quiet Escape to the French Countryside

Tucked off 26th Street in Santa Monica, the country-French restaurant Camelions, now a dozen years old, has become a reliable neighborhood standby of the more romantic variety. Walk through the front gate and immediately you’re in a quieter, more rustic world--you wouldn’t be surprised to see a scullery maid with a wooden bucket of well water, a hunter with a brace of pheasants and his trusty dog.

We are, in fact, met in the courtyard by a stately, white-muzzled golden retriever. His rheumy eyes light up to see us, his tail thumps a welcome, it’s harder to imagine a warmer greeting: Many a maitre d’ in this town could take a lesson from this kind creature. Meanwhile, Camelions’ maitre d’, himself a warm and perfect gentleman, leads us to our table.

Architecturally, Camelions is an odd arrangement: a string of lovely outdoor patios and three small buildings set back from the street. On each visit, my friends and I are invariably ushered back to the second dining room--perhaps we have some unknown-to-us attribute that matches us to this small room with low ceilings and fireplace in which one thin log bisects a sputtery gas flame.

Executive chef Steven Gomberg’s food has evolved into a consistent, high-quality blend of French and Italian-inflected California cooking. His winter menu, with its roasted vegetable and meat dishes and hearty braises, is particularly appealing.

An appetizer, red lentil crepes, are charmingly chewy, a perfect bland backdrop for slices of rich, velvety smoked salmon and crisp, peppery arugula leaves. In fact, I like all the salads here, each one prettily composed, judiciously dressed, from the simple mixed field greens tossed with a thyme-scented Zinfandel vinaigrette to the more rococo Belgian endive salad with its watercress, Maytag blue cheese, pecans and intensely flavored slivers of dried pear.

Tomato tart tatin is memorable for the sturdy, surprising, sexy suppleness of whole, upturned roasted tomatoes. Shared as an appetizer or hoarded as an entree, the beet and cabbage risotto may be one of the best risottos currently being stirred in Los Angeles. It could, with perfect accuracy, be called a “hot borscht” risotto: Earthy beets and ribbons of cabbage lurk like flavor bombs in the saucy carmine-colored riso, as well as one meaty short rib braised to a splendid, condensed, essence-of-beef tenderness.

The service at Camelions is low-key and sometimes borders on indifferent--a dessert menu tossed offhandedly on a table, crumbs never brushed away, a waiter arriving at the table with a hot clay pot and demanding, “Who has the duck?” Nobody has the duck, but I have ordered rabbit--a brief confusion of Easter imagery, it seems.

The rabbit, cut up and roasted with stewed peppers, haricots verts and whole, melting cloves of garlic, is plump and mild--a pleasantly light alternative to heavier winter fare. Crab cakes, made with Louisiana lump crab and wild rice, are delicious: Delicately seasoned to enhance the sweetness of the crab, they are served with an ear of roasted corn.

Whitefish, gloriously soft and fresh, is sauteed until a fragile filigree of spices forms a paper-thin crust that shatters against the tongue. The accompanying fried spinach echoes this irresistible sensation.

Lamb osso buco, an earthier, muskier version of the famous Milanese veal shanks, is another lovely braise; I scooped up every drop of gravy with its fresh fava beans and eye-opening bits of preserved lemon. The wine-marinated veal chop, also excellent, sits in a pool of vinegar-spiked juices with a grievously small island of mauve “Chianti” mashed potatoes--one would prefer a continent of those spuds.

Given the quiet, consistent excellence of the entrees, it is surprising that desserts are so dull. The lemon tart looks more like a lemon tostada, grainy yellow custard plopped in a deep-fried poppy-seed crepe. The creme bru^lee is merely de rigueur, but I did love the cookies that come with it: a chocolate ball and a flat shortbread, both provocatively full-flavored, yet not a bit sweet.

* Camelions, 246 26th St., Santa Monica, (310) 395-0746. Open for lunch, Tuesday-Saturday, for dinner Tuesday-Sunday and for Sunday brunch. Full bar. Street parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $45-$75.