Puttin’ On the New Ritz to Restore Old Order

Once again Orange County’s best restaurant is exactly where you expect it to be, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dana Point.

The Dining Room, which started out at the top rung of our local ladder, has in the past suffered a disorienting parade of chefs whose styles clashed with the hotel’s classical, European ambience. Although the latest chef isn’t a member of the old school, he knows how to bring his inventive style off in this setting.

Boris Keller is certainly well trained in the classical French style, yet he brings an aura of modernity to the traditional hoopla. His entrees are creative and colorful, enhanced by light sauces that suggest herbal essences. He complements most of them with seasonal vegetables, arranged sparely in floral patterns.

He learned his craft from one of the best. Keller was trained by Germany’s first Michelin three-star chef, Eckart Witzigmann (then at Tantris, now at Aubergine, both in Munich), the man who single-handedly put Germany on the culinary map through his use of regional produce and game.

Then Keller opened a restaurant of his own in the Hesse region of Germany, and was himself honored with a Michelin star. It’s unusual to find a German chef with these credentials in an American hotel dining room. The corporate office in Atlanta must have made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

In the Dining Room itself, meanwhile, changes have been kept to a minimum. It’s still a French provincial salon full of beveled mirrors, crystal chandeliers and tranquil Impressionist paintings. The staff hasn’t changed much either, except for the loss of capable sommelier Emmanuel Kemidji.

Maitre d’ Julian Velovan is as dependable as a beacon of light; he never misses a trick. The captains, waiters and bus people still treat every guest like visiting royalty, whisking shiny cloches from their plates in unison and pouring Vittel water without end into those little blue goblets. Someone is always within an arm’s length of your table. There is a consistency about this operation that seems almost timeless.

What’s new is in the kitchen. Last fall, Keller created a beef and venison carpaccio, the meats spiraled together and drizzled with walnut oil--as much oeuvre as hors d’oeuvre. Nowadays you can have his carpaccio of veal, topped with fresh herbs and pesto, looking like a palette of spring colors. It’s as beautiful a dish as you’ll ever see.

But his dishes satisfy more than the visual sense. “Gourmet salad” might have a self-inflating name, but the concept bears it all out: a beautiful plate of mesclun dressed with raspberry vinaigrette, around which fresh duck liver, gently grilled quail and chunks of lobster meat have been meticulously arranged. The dish is simple and disarming, yet it’s done so elegantly that it shines like a studded brooch.

Keller does wonders with more mundane ingredients too. Potato rosti is a flat potato cake topped with an even flatter piece of marinated salmon. The potato has been shredded together with carrot, onion and spices, then grilled to a golden crunch.

After you eat a few dishes here, you get a clear sense of this chef’s style: creative but craftsmanlike, embodying the spirit of modern Germany. Dover sole is served in a parsley sauce with mushrooms and potato ravioli, a ravishing dish where the whole exceeds the sum of its parts. An ethereal roasted saddle of lamb comes in a potato crust, with a glossy rosemary sauce that brings it back to earth with a thud. Intensely smoky air-dried duck is served with peaches and Chinese vegetables--a festive combination that doesn’t make sense until you bite in.

Keller’s desserts can be stunners, too, though not all of them taste as good as they look. Pistachio gratin is one that actually tastes better than it looks: a rich, airy confection with a meringue-like texture, colored Day-Glo green. It comes to you hot but the fresh strawberry coulis it swims in cools it down just perfectly.

The Cointreau Napoleon is another story. This dessert, which looks like a flying saucer and consists mainly of gelatinous Bavarian cream, tastes like something you might get, say, in First Class on Japan Air Lines. So nobody’s perfect.

The best way to get an overview of this food is to order the menu degustation, a five-course meal that will overwhelm you without making you unreasonably full.

Currently, the menu begins with another carpaccio, this time of wild Alaskan salmon in a citrus-infused olive oil marinade. The salmon is wonderfully delicate and sweet, but what tells you something about this restaurant is the garnish: tiny spears of green asparagus and thick ones of fresh white asparagus. That’s fresh white asparagus, from a producer in Mexico.

If your only brush with white asparagus has been the canned version found in our venerable Continental restaurants, then get a fast car, drive over to this restaurant and order some. These snappy, sumptuous stalks are probably the best thing you can eat here, from a kitchen that uses caviar and foie gras the way Kevin Costner uses buffalo.

It’s just a shame you have to pay these prices to eat them. Because in case I have forgotten to mention it, the Dining Room, while by no means the hottest ticket in town, is definitely the priciest. Some traditions--order, talent and credentials notwithstanding--just never seem to go away.

The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton is very expensive. Appetizers are $8 to $18. Entrees are $28 to $44. Desserts are $9 and $10. The menu degustation is $58.

* THE DINING ROOM AT THE RITZ-CARLTON

* 33533 Ritz-Carlton Drive, Dana Point.

* (714) 240-5008.

* Dinner nightly from 6 to 10:30 p.m.

* All major cards accepted.