Fresh Peaches

* With its sweet, juicy taste and floral aroma, the perfect peach defines summer.

Joan’s on Third: Here you can get an individual peach pie flavored with homemade apricot jam (it domes 5 inches high), a peach cobbler dotted with currants or scones crammed with peach chunks. (Individual peach pie, $6.50; peach cobbler, market price; peach scones, $2.75.) Joan’s on Third, 8350 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles, (323) 655-2285.

Julienne Fine Food: A peach dumpling is a whole peach, skin and all, covered with flaky dough, baked golden and served with honey caramel sauce. It’s best heated up, but it also makes a great picnic dessert. (Peach dumplings, $5.50 each; minimum order six.) Julienne Fine Food, 2651 Mission St., San Marino, (626) 441-2299.

Spago: Pastry chef Sherry Yard’s cobbler of Mayfire peaches is served hot over olallieberries and creme fraiche ice cream. She also dips a Ring of Saturn peach in verbena syrup, rolls it in biscotti crumbs and bakes it, making what looks like a crumb doughnut with all peach inside. It comes on bitter caramel ice cream with stewed raspberries. (Tableside peach cobbler, $14; Ring of Saturn peach, $14.) Spago, 176 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 385-0880.

Clementine: All summer long, chef-owner Annie Miler makes fresh peach butter for her hot buttermilk biscuits. You can also spread your biscuits with excellent peach jam by Edon Waycott. (Hot biscuit plate, $5.25.) Clementine, 1751 Ensley Ave., Los Angeles, (310) 552-1080.

Mr. Stox: This Orange County favorite makes a pie using freestone peaches from trees on the restaurant property mixed with blueberries, baked in a biscuit-like lattice crust and served with homemade blueberry ice cream. (Fresh peach and blueberry pie, $5.95 per slice.) Mr. Stox, 1105 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim, (714) 634-2994.

Mimosa: Here’s summer for you: raspberry sorbet and a poached white peach blanketed with orange blossom sabayon, quickly run under a broiler to give it a golden tinge. (White peach gratinee with orange blossom water sabayon, $7.) Mimosa, 8009 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 655-8895.