This Bistro Is a Mall Wonder

troquet has been open only a scant three months, yet I’ve eaten some of the best meals I’ve had in Southern California at this French restaurant, set in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza. Troquet means “casual little bistro” in French, but if Liza and Tim Goodell’s second Orange County restaurant is a bistro, then it’s one of breathtaking sophistication.

The Goodells have transformed what was New York restaurateur Pino Luongo’s Piccola Cucina into a restaurant with the allure of the beloved Paris institution Closerie des Lilas. Peering in the windows, you can’t help but want to join the glamorous, well-dressed diners seated at the brocade banquettes, leaning toward each other, drinking wine and stealing bites off each other’s pretty plates. The women are lovely in the soft amber light of Art Nouveau lamps shaped like datura blossoms.

At the back of the restaurant, a fire glows in the wood-burning oven once used for pizzas, and plump free-range chickens turn in a rotisserie. Tim Goodell, a dark-haired man in his early 30s, is here most nights, directing the handful of cooks at the open kitchen. He’ll return to Aubergine, the couple’s first restaurant, after renovations to the charming Newport Beach cottage are completed in March. It’s impressive that even on the rare night when he’s not at Troquet, the food is still very good.

Though Troquet is twice the size of Aubergine, Goodell is showing he’s more than up to the challenge of running a larger restaurant with the same attention to detail. This American chef’s cooking has a grace and balance that makes French cuisine seem fresh again. Flavors are clear, succinct, sensual. The food, without ever being overwrought, is beautiful to contemplate.

To start the evening, a waiter offers a variety of handsome rustic breads--olive, sourdough, rosemary, sometimes caraway and a walnut loaf--baked every morning in the wood-burning oven. Then an amuse-bouche (palate teaser) arrives, perhaps a single chilled oyster on the half-shell splashed with a mignonette of horseradish and tarragon.

Goodell’s smart, appealing menu makes it hard to decide what to order. It all sounds wonderful--and, miraculously, it is. One night, I start with the lobster strudel special, a stunning roulade of phyllo and poached lobster perched on a cushion of sublime mashed potatoes garnished with delicately earthy wild mushrooms. Another satisfying appetizer is a bowl of small, plump Prince Edward Island mussels and Manila clams steamed with shallots and white wine. Also enticing is a salad of juicy poached Bartlett pear and boulders of Maytag blue cheese on wisps of frisee and arugula dressed in a black pepper gastrique.

At restaurants in France, many of the main courses are available only for two. Here, they are a stupendously good cote de boeuf, cooked on the bone and served sliced with those great mashed potatoes or a pile of excellent frites, and the aforementioned rotisserie chicken.

The wood-fired oven does something marvelous to fresh cod served with a piece of toasted olive bread soaked in its juices, and to duck breast ribboned with fat and presented with an irresistible mix of fingerling potatoes, pearl onions and baby turnips.

Splurge on the eight-course tasting menu and you get the chance to sample more of Goodell’s cooking without having to share. The perfectly orchestrated menu I have one recent evening is memorable.

For instance, I am taken with Goodell’s yellowfin tuna, seared rare, encrusted with crunchy fennel seeds and paired with a delicious salad of shaved fennel, celery root and apple. And I love the single peeky toe crab ravioli crowned with candied ginger in a smol-dering red curry and coconut broth delicately perfumed with lemongrass oil. It’s a confident move into exotic territory.

The fish course is porcini-dusted sturgeon set on a smooth leek puree encircled by dusky flaps of black chanterelles in porcini jus. Then comes a ballotine of duck, a boned, rolled bird stuffed with rich, silky foie gras and black truffles.

The tasting menu’s meat course combines prime short ribs braised to enhance their deep meaty flavor and velvety texture, and rare slices of excellent petit filet.

Save some of your red wine for the cheese course, an array of shrewdly selected imported and domestic varieties. And pace yourself. It would be a shame to forgo dessert because the creations of Goodell and his pastry chef, Robert Stepanow, rival those at top restaurants anywhere in the country. To mention just a few: fragile leaves of chocolate mille-feuille layered with sumptuous bittersweet chocolate pastry cream and served with a bitter chocolate sorbet; a delicate little “purse” of brik dough filled with chocolate and cherries; and a dreamy tapioca brulee topped with a circlet of sliced bananas glazed with caramel. The megeve, a cake made of layers of praline and chocolate mousse garnished with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, is terrific, too. And the profiteroles, stuffed with espresso ice cream and drizzled with a dark chocolate sauce, are as good as they get.

Considering the quality of this restaurant experience, Troquet is a surprising bargain (few main courses are more than $20; the tasting menu is $65). The Goodells have invested in fine linens and flatware. The glassware is better than at many more expensive restaurants. And the service is warm and attentive.

I wish the wine list offered more--and more interesting--choices, though. And I do wish someone would think to tell you, before leaving, exactly how to exit the mall after shopping hours.

Nevertheless, it’s exciting to have a new restaurant to rave about, especially one from a chef who already has an excellent one. When Aubergine opened, the day-in, day-out grind of running a restaurant was harder than the Goodells ever imagined. But Aubergine has thrived, and Tim Goodell’s cooking has soared. Now he’s shown he has the talent--and steeliness--to open an even bigger, busier restaurant, without compromising.

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TROQUET

CUISINE: French. AMBIENCE: Stylish bistro with open kitchen, wood-burning oven and brocade banquettes. BEST DISHES: oysters, ballotine of duck, prime cote de boeuf, roasted cod, chocolate mille--feuille. WINE PICK: 1995 Perrin Cote du Rhone reserve, Rhone Valley. FACTS: South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa; (714) 708-6865. Lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday. Appetizers, $6.50 to $14; main courses, $17 to $24. Corkage $10. Valet and lot parking.