Back to the beginning

IN a city where restaurants come and go faster than the latest Prada-inspired handbag fad, few manage to hang on to a loyal following as tenaciously as has Grill Lyon. Since 1981, it has survived multiple relocations, disappearances and name changes, not to mention evolving food trends.

Now after an absence of several years, and without much fanfare, this Japanese-style French restaurant has re-emerged in the same Little Tokyo minimall in which it thrived for nearly a decade.

One recent Sunday evening not long after the reopening, dozens of good luck potted plants and floral bouquets still crowded its tiny dining room. Each time the door swung open there were cries of joy, enthusiastic pleasantries, smiles and multiple bows all around as though arriving diners had discovered a lost friend.

When the restaurant first opened, well before we began eating tri-cultural ceviches and Thai-inflected pastas, its chef, Tadayoshi Matsuno, attracted a cult following for turning out rarified Franco-Japanese cuisine at populist prices. Called simply Lyon in those days, his restaurant was set in a former sushi bar on 1st Street and Virgil Avenue. Customers felt lucky to nab one of the 15 counter seats, and would watch enthralled as a slim, smiling Matsuno, always immaculate in chef’s whites and classic toque, whipped up beurre blanc and arranged food on Villeroy & Boch look-alike plates using chopsticks.

Lyon introduced what eventually morphed into more radical fusion cooking to the broad swath of L.A.’s restaurant-going population who relied on Trader Joe’s-like budgets.

Over the years, Matsuno and his bubbly wife, Keiko, ran an upscale version of Lyon in Pasadena, closed that and opened the first modestly priced Little Tokyo Grill Lyon, returned to Pasadena for a year, closed because of illness and then resurfaced in Torrance, where they operated until their retirement in May 2001.

Why have they returned to the excruciatingly tough job of maintaining a small family restaurant? My hunch: The Matsunos want to introduce their son, Kiichi, a budding chef who apprenticed at his father’s elbow. More recently Kiichi trained with Cafe Blanc’s Tommy Harase and was sous-chef for Akira Hirose at Maison Akira in Pasadena.

Although there’s no longer a counter at Grill Lyon, a semi-open kitchen allows patrons to greet Matsuno and Kiichi as they cook. Otherwise, the boxy room in the small space next to Sushi Gen is made appealing with a well-stocked wooden wine cabinet, crisp white linens at dinner time and a decorative screen.

Matsuno has a repertoire that remains true to a specific slot on life’s culinary timeline; classify it as early Julia Child but with far less butter. Although there is a bento box offering at lunch and the pork sirloin is breaded with panko crumbs, you won’t find southeast Asian crab cakes or lemon grass-infused aji no tatake (finely diced mackerel). Instead, there’s a delicious version of scallops a la Provencal or a special of the lobster bisque once deemed “awesome,” by a young Roy Yamaguchi during his formative French period.

At lunchtime, downtown workers crowd the restaurant for satisfying three-course meals with an average price of $9.

There’s no better deal in town. Juicy and saucy, the chicken saute chasseur (hunter’s style) comes heaped with fresh mushrooms under a chunky tomato-wine sauce and may be accompanied by vegetables or a gratin of potatoes. A grilled Black Angus sirloin is set over a micro-thin film of sauce Bordeaux that’s the very essence of meatiness. Such plates come with a baby lettuce salad and a soup du jour; one day it was a velvety puree of curried Japanese pumpkin.

Dinners are more leisurely and in many ways better. The changing daily special usually runs about $27 for three fairly elaborate courses and coffee. One evening it included smoked salmon on toast points along with a Euro-lettuce salad, a Kobe-style beef prime rib steak over a wine reduction with assorted vegetable garnishes, and a choice of dessert -- we selected a fresh fruit-filled crepe a la mode with fruit coulis swirls decorating the plate.

Nothing high concept, of course, just carefully chosen ingredients, unerringly prepared and put forth with a sense of the luxurious. Bottles of nicely selected but modestly priced wines average $21.

If anything, the food is more delicate now than ever. Sauces are lighter and more sparingly used than at the earlier incarnations of Grill Lyon. The sauce for duck a l’orange (crisp-skinned seared breast slices under a jaunty pile of angel hair-thin julienne of orange zest) is basically an intensely flavored broth. Four perfectly cooked lamb chops are propped up on a white pepper-infused translucent demi-glace that deepens the meat’s flavor.

Appetizers, including ethereal shrimp ravioli in dainty wonton wrappers or seared foie gras on grilled apple slices, manage to seem contemporary yet as satisfying as comfort food.

Matsuno’s desserts, an apple tart with layers of mille feuille pastry and a drizzle of caramel or a souffle-like cheesecake set off by several fresh fruit sauces, seem just the right weight to extend the pleasures of the meal.

While the cooking won’t get hailed as le dernier cri as it once was, this may be its perfect moment. With growing attendance at downtown cultural centers, including the recently expanded Japanese American National Museum, the convenience of the nearby Gold Line and scores of former warehouses in adjacent neighborhoods turning into condos, no time could be more ideal for Lyon’s reprise.

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Grill Lyon

Location: 424 E. 2nd St. (Honda Plaza), downtown Los Angeles, (213) 620-0050.

Price: Lunch, $8 to $10. Dinner appetizers, $5 to $14; dinner entrees, $12.50 to $26.

Best dishes: Shrimp ravioli, marinated salmon, Kobe-style prime rib, duck a l’orange, cheesecake.

Details: Open for lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. For dinner, 5:30 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday; 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Lot parking. Major credit cards. Wine, sake, beer.