Food’s as Good as the View

Lots of restaurants along the Orange County coast offer Sunday brunch, but Las Brisas is undoubtedly the most popular and arguably the finest. Brunch here isn’t just a pleasant meal, it’s an exquisite tourist experience, making even jaded locals gush in praise of the beauty of the beach.

The view from the bluff-top site just north of Laguna’s Main Beach constitutes what some chamber-of-commerce types coined a decade ago as “California’s Riviera.” These marketers weren’t too off the mark either, as Las Brisas “brunchers” can gaze longingly at the dancing blue seas, curving coastline and fertile hills and daydream of a Mediterranean escape far, far away.

Instead of relying solely on its view, Las Brisas offers an inventive menu of roughly 20 items with nary a scrambled egg or bacon strip in sight. Though this menu offers requisite egg dishes such as huevos Benedictos (as they are listed) and omelets, there’s an inviting selection of Mexican seafood dishes, pastas, seafood salads and beef dishes. With no ordinary brunch dishes for the offering, this makes for some difficult, but ultimately pleasing, choices.

Brunch opens with a tasty fruit sampler of blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and cantaloupe with a sweet raspberry sauce. Accompanying the sampler is an overflowing basket of fresh breads and pastries--these opening offerings are enough to satisfy most breakfast cravings, but they merely tease the taste buds for what’s to come.

When I recently went to Las Brisas with a group of friends, we all struggled with some tempting possibilities. I opted for the pastel del mar, a flaky pastry filled with shrimp, scallops and fish chunks mixed in a creamy chipotle sauce. I wasn’t disappointed--it’s as good as it sounds.

Other choices my crew made also satisfied--the crepes de Laguna, which comes with either a creamy chicken or a combo of the same seafood found in the pastel del mar, and the salmoncito relleno, a salmon filet stuffed with spinach and mushrooms and covered with a lime cream sauce. A small quiche comes with it.

Large, savory shrimp are sauteed in a tomato-basil sauce in the pasta con camarones, the one pasta dish on the menu. And for a lighter meal, there’s the pollo a la Parilla, in which a tangy tarragon sauce covers a moist chicken breast. But there is also a heady selection of steak and beef dishes, not exactly light and fluffy beach food, but I didn’t hear anyone who ordered any of these dishes complain.

The biftec marinado is a savory London broil made from a New York strip cut, and the filete tierno de res offers a petite filet mignon served on a bed of caramelized onions with mushrooms and a chile corn sauce. As with the salmon, a side of quiche comes with it. Also, one of the non-listed specials featured medallions of New York steak on mashed potatoes (a tender calamari steak was the other).

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The one salad Las Brisas serves is simply one of the finest I’ve seen anyplace. The ensalada Laguna is packed with chilled lobster, crab, shrimp and poached salmon on assorted greens and papaya. A ginger balsamic dressing covers it all. The seafood is tantalizingly fresh, and the light dressing accents the varied flavors perfectly. Most of the brunch selections feature side dishes such as fried potatoes and eggs Florentine, as if the featured items weren’t enough. And then there’s dessert.

On my last visit, a bland carrot cake was the meal’s only blemish, but this was soon overlooked because of the never-ending flow of champagne that’s part of the $19.95 brunch price. Who can complain with champagne in hand?

Las Brisas pours a fine house brand, and it’s just the stuff needed to fuel your intrepid nature, because afterward, beyond the well-tended rose garden outside the restaurant is a dirt trail leading down to easily navigated coastal tide pools.

And from experience, I can tell you that a bit of post-brunch marine biology is the perfect conclusion to a sunny afternoon at Las Brisas.

Las Brisas

* 361 Cliff Drive, Laguna Beach. (949) 497-5434.

* Sunday brunch, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. $19.95.