La Fayette: A Bistro and Much More

Bistro cooking is the latest rage, it seems. In Los Angeles, places like Mimosa are positively jumping. Up north in the wine country, Bistro Jeanty turns away many more customers than it serves.

But a few restaurants have been serving bistro food all along. Take La Fayette, an ancient place on an appropriately sleepy stretch of Garden Grove Boulevard in Garden Grove.

The only thing modern about this big, dimly lit room is the towering spray of fresh flowers smack in the middle of it. Otherwise, La Fayette is all Old World charm and faded grandeur: glass chandeliers straight from the set of a Merchant-Ivory production, huge semicircular booths, empty magnums of expensive Bordeaux on the sideboards and a few Renoir prints hung over the tables nearest the kitchen.

Chef-owner Edmond Sarfati, who actually grew up in Paris across the street from the Moulin Rouge, is retro himself. He could be the French chef in a Maurice Chevalier movie; he’s a jovial, red-cheeked grandfather type with a bushy, upturned mustache. When he’s not making a pa^te or deboning a breast of veal in the kitchen, you’ll find him strolling around the dining room in his chef’s whites, talking about his favorite subject: food.

For the record, La Fayette isn’t a bistro. It’s a slightly formal dining room where waiters in tuxedos serve from a cart. The menu is filled with Continental classics like Dover sole, tournedos bearnaise and rack of lamb.

But Sarfati, who has had this restaurant for 27 years, has seen trends come and go. What has sustained him, and his regular customers, is the simple, hearty everyday food of France: oysters, ratatouille, braised rabbit, beef Burgundy, duck confit. In short, the things found at any bistro worth its salt.

Most of these items are not on La Fayette’s regular menu, but any time you visit, you’ll find a few of them named on index cards clipped to the menu pages. And Sarfati always keeps a couple of surprises around for his regulars. The best strategy when dining here is simply to ask somebody “What’s cooking?”

I’ve never had bad luck with this approach. On a recent visit, my guests and I began with leeks vinaigrette, and they turned out to be uncommonly tender poached leeks, served cold, fragrant with the basil and tarragon the chef grows himself behind the restaurant. I couldn’t imagine anything more French.

There are usually cold fruits de mer--Dungeness crab, Maine lobster, jumbo shrimp and whatever else the chef has on hand, served on a large platter, bistro-style. These seafoods are especially good when dipped in the chef’s homemade aioli, a rich garlic mayonnaise.

Sometimes there is a fluffy salmon mousse made with lots of mayonnaise and chopped celery. It’s delicious on the restaurant’s crusty country bread. La Fayette is also the place to order oysters with sauce mignonette, a traditional dipping sauce of shallots and red wine vinegar. Right now, Sarfati is featuring delicate, briny Malpeque oysters from Puget Sound.

The main dishes come with soup or a salad of butter lettuce tossed with a garlicky vinaigrette. The soup of the day might be a rich cream of watercress based on veal stock or even a filling minestrone, but I’d pass on either of those in favor of the beefy, heartbreakingly classic French onion soup, topped with Gruyere cheese in an enormous crock. It’s available any day.

My favorite entree might be the duck confit--one of the dishes that isn’t on the menu but almost always available. Confit is meat preserved in its own fat, and when the meat happens to be duck, the bird is cooked to a crackling crispness. Ask nicely and the chef will fry some potatoes in the leftover duck fat. This isn’t diet food, but the result is transcendentally delicious.

All the specials are seasonal. Right now they include terrific braised rabbit in red wine sauce--the meat tender, the mushroom-laced sauce impressively rich--and abalone, well pounded, sauteed in egg batter and brushed with tangy lemon caper butter.

One recent summer evening I had braised stuffed veal breast, a large slice with a veal forcemeat in the center. On another occasion, I tried veal chop a la forestiere, grilled and topped with a creamy mushroom sauce. Most people will probably find it too rich to finish; I know I did.

Pace yourself so you’ll have room when the pastry cart rolls around. The best things on this chariot of indulgent treats are the French-style strawberry shortcake (it’s about two parts whipped cream to one part cake); the chocolate eclair, which has an intense chocolate Bavarian filling and a thick chocolate glaze; and the fresh peaches marinated in a sweet red wine sauce, served in a parfait glass topped with more whipped cream.

La Fayette is expensive. Appetizers are $4.50 to $28. Entrees are $21 to $26. Desserts are $5.

BE THERE

La Fayette, 12532 Garden Grove Blvd., Garden Grove. (714) 537-5011. Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Monday-Friday; dinner 6-10 p.m. Monday- Saturday. All major cards.

* REVIEWS

More restaurant news on Pages 50 and 51.