In Santa Monica, Melisse Is Serious French Cooking

“Hey, what happened to By Brazil?” asked two lissome 20-somethings dressed up to party, as I stood at the valet station at 11th and Wilshire in Santa Monica waiting for my car.

That lively Brazilian hangout has flown. In its place is Melisse, a new French restaurant from Josiah Citrin, who co-owned JiRaffe in Santa Monica with childhood friend and fellow surfer-chef Raphael Lunetta until Citrin got the itch to open his own place. (Lunetta is now cooking on his own at JiRaffe and doing just fine.)

Named for the lemon-scented Mediterranean herb, Melisse is the first new serious French restaurant to debut in the L.A. area in quite a while. It’s wonderful to walk into this vision of French country chic to find waiters dressed up in suits, tables swathed in linen, and candles with porcelain shades inscribed with fairy-tale scenes of France. An antique chandelier glitters overhead. And the garden room at the back features a retractable roof for star gazing on balmy nights. This is not l’Orangerie, though. There’s nothing stiff about the place.

Citrin’s menu is ambitiously large, and includes not one but three tasting menus: a vegetarian option (right now it’s a “celebration of tomatoes”), a six-course prix fixe menu and Le Grand Chef menu, which encompasses eight small courses. Note that menus are served for the entire table only.

So we decided to explore the a la carte menu on a first visit. I thoroughly enjoyed Citrin’s elegant lobster salad ringed with glistening ruby beets, and the crisp sweetbreads paired with beguiling sweet and sour carrots and a bracing orange coriander reduction. When our roasted co^te de boeuf for two was ready, the waiter showed us the beautiful piece of prime beef, and proceeded to carve it off the bone in thick, rare slices. I appreciated that he knew not to whisk away the bone, but to serve this, which holds some of the most delicious morsels close to the bone, too. Squab Boulanger (baker’s pigeon), served from a little copper casserole, with meaty cepes, mellow little cippolini onions and the glorious pan juices was excellent. And the slow-roasted veal chop was a revelation, pale pink and almost custardy in texture. The slow roasting seems to have concentrated its flavor.

Pastry chef Javier Franco makes a terrific creme bru^lee scented with lavender and covered with a glassy sheet of burnt sugar. And instead of the molten flourless chocolate cake on every menu in town, he bakes a variation on the theme with chocolate and almonds, served with a fine praline ice cream.

At the end of the meal, Citrin, rumpled and shy, emerged from the kitchen to make the rounds of the tables. I’d venture to say he’s hearing only good things.

All in all, it’s a promising beginning.

BE THERE

Melisse, 1104 Wilshire Blvd. (at 11th Street), Santa Monica; (310) 395-0881. Open Monday-Saturday for dinner and, after Labor Day, on weekdays for lunch. Appetizers, $10 to $19; main courses, $25 to $38; vegetarian menu, $48 per person; six-course prix fixe, $58; eight-course Le Grand Chef menu, $75.