A Pleasant Surprise in the Valley

Two young Brits have quietly opened a little place called Perroche on Ventura Boulevard just east of Laurel Canyon and it’s already, at just 3 weeks old, one of the most promising restaurants to debut in the Valley in quite some time. Walking into this modest space, decorated only with paintings of lavender fields, to find such considerate service and understated, elegant cooking made my entire week. Named, a bit mysteriously, for a goat cheese made in England (and unavailable here), Perroche is the collaboration of Grady Atkins, former sous-chef at the Peninsula Beverly Hills, and Stuart Barker, who manages the front end. Their menu melds the cooking of France, Italy, and England, which can now--tired jokes about bad English grub aside--boast some of the best cooking in Europe.

The small menu, a half-dozen appetizers and the same number of main courses, no specials, was a good sign. So was the note “where taste exceeds that of conventional, organic ingredients are always used.” And these were not the same old dishes you see everywhere. The two take cooking very seriously.

To start, there was a full-bodied potato and garlic soup not shy on garlic, smoked trout stacked with steamed new potatoes and crowned with horseradish cream, and a dreamy “parfait” of chicken livers, sort of a kinder, gentler terrine.

Grilled flank of beef was perfectly cooked, bathed in a suave Cabernet sauce. A small roasted Kendor Farm chicken was fabulous, subtly flavored with tarragon and paired with gorgeous golden beets. I’d order the grilled albacore tuna again just for the celery root mash that came with it; still, the fish was pretty great, cooked like a steak, rare at the center.

Atkins is a fine pastry chef, too, as his fluffy lemon tart (made from nine lemons), rum-drenched baba, or dreamy rice pudding and oranges attest.

I can’t wait to go back.

BE THERE

Perroche, 11929 Ventura Blvd., Studio City. (818) 766-1179. Open Monday through Saturday for dinner; Monday through Friday for lunch. Major credit cards accepted. Parking in back. Appetizers $5 to $9; main courses $13 to $17.