Hotel Dining A’ La Provence

Dining in a hotel restaurant used to be a last resort--something you did only if you were actually staying at the hotel or needed to take your great-aunt for a quiet, civilized dinner. Hotel restaurants had their uses, but exciting eating wasn’t one of them.

Until recently. The exquisitely crafted classical cooking of some hotel restaurants now rivals the big cities’ top spots. Who else but the St. Regis Hotel would have the money to build Gray Kunz a $1-million kitchen at Lespinasse in New York? Here in Los Angeles, the restaurants at the Hotel Bel-Air and the Peninsula Beverly Hills stand out. And there’s an exciting new contender: Lavande, the restaurant in the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, where Alain Giraud, former chef de cuisine at Citrus, is cooking.

Lavande’s theme, as explained on a sandwich board at the entrance (complete with glamour photo of the chef), is the cooking of Provence. With its soft yellow walls and rustic green and ochre Provenal pottery, the newly rebuilt restaurant has a surprisingly warm and informal feeling. Tables are generously spaced, and the noise level, even when the restaurant is full, allows for conversation.

If you arrive early enough, you can revel in the view through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the sun setting over the ocean. So few restaurants in this city can boast an ocean view that this one comes as a wonderful gift. The restaurant’s bar, a few steps from the dining room, boasts the same view. And it pours excellent Perrier-Jout Champagne by the glass, garnished with a sprig of lavender (lavande is French for “lavender”).

Giraud grew up in the old Roman town of N 5/8mes, France, southwest of Avignon, before training as a chef in Paris. He was chef de cuisine at Citrus for almost 10 years, and he and Citrus chef/owner Michel Richard were a remarkable team. Richard’s creative flair inspired Giraud to excel quietly in the background. Now he has the chance to shine.

His menu mixes traditional Provenal dishes with others merely inspired by that sunny region. It doesn’t try to be comprehensive, never straying far from the scents and flavors of southern France. In four visits, I’ve eaten my way through much of the menu.

I love the way Giraud plays with the idea of ratatouille, the famous “stew” of eggplant, zucchini, onions and tomatoes with garlic and the fragrant Provenal green-gold oil. He takes these ingredients and turns them into a lovely terrine striped with layers of red, tan and olive, anchoring it with a band of olive and anchovy sauce. Lavande’s Caesar salad is made with beautifully fresh romaine strewn with lacy Parmesan chips. There’s a fine fish soup with an authentic Mediterranean flavor, basically the soupe de poissons you might find in Cassis or Bandol. But here it’s ladled from a silver tureen and comes with silver sauce boats of rouille and grated Gruyere to garnish the croutons. If you’re in the mood for foie gras, choose the cold, silky roulade, a spiral of foie gras encrusted with golden raisin aspic, instead of the sauteed foie gras, with pears and cranberries in a sticky sweet sauce.

Roasted salmon is crisp on the outside, still rosy and translucent inside. It’s accompanied by an onion tart and pissaladiere sauce, based on the flavors of Provence’s flat bread topped with caramelized onions, olives and anchovies. Roasted Chilean sea bass comes with artichokes barigoule (stewed with white wine and basil). If you’re feeling festive and can persuade your dining companion to share, order the splendid grilled striped bass for two, cooked with fennel, anise and a splash of pastis, anise-flavored liqueur. I am less fond of the coffret of sandre, a freshwater white fish enclosed in pastry, with a slice of black truffle at its heart.

From the “Classic Provence” section of the menu (which, unfortunately, consists of only three dishes), I love the big chunks of tender calamari and potatoes in a tomato sauce tinged with red pepper, and the daube, of course, which is butter-tender veal stewed in red wine with both green and black olives. I wish, though, that Giraud hadn’t bothered to pit the olives. It makes the dish too refined.

As a special or part of the tasting menu, he offers wonderfully gamey rare squab glazed with Provence’s lavender honey. If you want something plainer, try the cote de boeuf for two, a beautiful piece of beef cut off the bone at tableside and served with feather-light pommes souffles.

Everything is very good. Yet it seems just a bit safe. A little more of the flamboyance and exuberance of Giraud’s cooking at Citrus would be nice.

Hired months before restaurant reconstruction started, Giraud had the luxury to experiment with the menu and think everything out. That careful planning shows in the details and made for a particularly smooth opening in mid-February. The service has few glitches. Water is refilled, but not too frequently. Wine is poured at the right moment and in the right amount. Even when waiters are called upon to filet the fish for two tableside, a sometimes tricky procedure, they do it with aplomb.

Too bad the wine list doesn’t showcase more of the top wines from Provence and the rest of southern France. Most of the selections were probably inherited from the hotel’s previous restaurant, Coast Cafe, but even California winemakers doing good work with Rhone varietals are underrepresented. Anyhow, Guigal’s 1990 Hermitage blanc is here for the drinking. And at dessert time, don’t miss the chance to savor the heady, honey-scented Muscat de Beaumes de Venise from one of the unique dessert wines’ best producers, Domaine de Coyeux.

Be sure to order dessert: the ravishing vacherin glace, fragile teardrops of snowy meringue, a rich ice cream perfumed with lavender, and luscious ripe strawberries. Or the rectangular tart with an intriguing anise crust topped with fig puree and fat raspberries lined up in precise rows. Passion fruit and mango meringue tart looks nothing like meringue pie. Think tall tropical custard with a wonderful sticky meringue in a pool of mango sauce streaked with raspberry. I also like the thin dessert crepes filled with slivers of dried fruit and creme catalane, the lemon-flavored custard that’s a favorite with Catalans.

At the end of the meal, guests are given tiny sachets carrying the characteristic scent of Provence. But even without the sachets, Lavande is memorable.

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Lavande

CUISINE: French-Provenal. BEST DISHES: Terrine of vegetable ratatouille, foie gras roulade, daube de boeuf, squab in lavender honey glaze, cote de boeuf for two. WINE PICKS: 1996 Robert Biale Vineyards Petite Sirah, Napa Valley. FACTS: Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, 1700 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica; (310) 576-3181. Lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday; Sunday brunch. Dinner appetizers, $7 to $15; main courses, $19 to $27. Corkage $10 to $15. Valet parking.