RESTAURANT REVIEW : La Serre Lives On but With Misty Future

To paraphrase Peter, Paul and Mary: A dragon lives forever, but not a restaurant.

La Serre, for years the Valley’s best-known French restaurant, lives on, but with a future as misty as Puff’s mythical cave. The present owners, confounding many rumors, have no immediate plans to close the restaurant but are undecided about its imminent direction. To compound the confusion, longtime chef Jean-Pierre Peiny left last year (to open his own restaurant), and his replacement, Fennel’s much talked-about Jean-Pierre Bosc, stayed only a few months.

For years this restaurant has resisted efforts to modernize, basing itself on a staid, south-of-the-Boulevard clientele that has never been quite at home with the more radical trends in French cooking. Capable chefs David D’Amore and Jim Legge handle the kitchen today, but one would have to look hard to find a glint of the cutting edge in what they are presently cooking. Perhaps time has passed this venerable establishment by.

That remains to be seen. But if you are looking for a comforting, albeit high-ticket, French dining experience, La Serre still fills the bill nicely. This menu abounds with old-timers-- soupe a l’oignon, salade verte, a sticky-sweet duck du jour --that dominate this restaurant the way self-promotion dominates a Senate hearing. Just don’t look for less familiar French dishes, such as duck with turnips, or anything very daring.

I will say that this is a restaurant with few, if any major flaws. As befits the restaurant’s name (la serre means “the greenhouse”), each of the tiny dining rooms is filled with chlorophyll-rich green plants, and the tables, draped in green and white, coexist almost peacefully with them. Add oval-backed French provincial chairs to relax on and a rustic brick floor, and it all adds up to a relaxing place to dine.

Oh, service is often a bit snooty in that infuriatingly punk French manner. On one visit, mulling the possibility of having my foie gras served cold, en terrine, or hot, sauteed with apples and Calvados, I made the mistake of deferring to the waiter. He looked down his nose at me and asked, “Well, have you ever had hot foie gras, monsieur?” That attitude toward the diner is certainly passe. Only the beautifully caramelized surface and meltingly sweet flavors of the liver redeemed that little incident.

On another visit, the meal began more auspiciously, with a special appetizer called organic tomato and Maui onions with goat cheese and basil. A dish like this one is never out of style. This tomato is blood-red and the Maui onions accompanying it are sugar-sweet. The world’s best saucier couldn’t improve on such ingredients.

The salty house onion soup is no match for what the restaurant calls soupe provencale, a soup much like the French peasant’s garbure , made with eggplant, tomato and just-done garbanzo beans blessed with an addictive snap. A pricey lobster ravioli, in contrast, is a self-indulgent attempt at modernity. Its fancy name (raviolis de homard du Maine au safran) and pleasing flavors don’t hide the truth: These are nothing more than deep-fried pasta pockets--lobster won tons, really--in a classically rich butter sauce.

The menu is far from experimental in the entree section. It’s largely fresh fish, expertly cooked with traditional accompaniments like lemon butter, and roast meats with the sorts of sauce you find in London grill rooms: mustards, sauce bearnaise.

Supreme du volaille grille aux fines herbes is simple but at the same time ordinary, a grilled breast of chicken in a competent herbal fumet. It can’t even touch a good take-out version such as Zankou’s, and at six times the price. But I must admit the tournedos of salmon in red wine sauce is quite wonderful. One side is seared and crisp, and the center slightly undercooked, a rare concession to fashion.

Two lamb dishes I’ve tried couldn’t have been more different. D’Amore roasts his carre d’agneau (a regular menu item) quite simply with sage and garlic, and the result is wonderful rack of lamb. Slices from a special gigot of New Zealand spring lamb, however, were tender to the point of mushiness. It didn’t help that the accompanying rosemary sauce lacked character altogether.

Desserts here won’t overwhelm you; in fact, you are almost discouraged from ordering them. The waiter may not inform you until he hands over the dessert list that the souffles--chocolate, Grand Marnier and raspberry--take 30 minutes. A bitter chocolate marquise is bittersweet at best, a grainy suspension served with an even grainier pistachio nut ice cream. And a special dessert, figs marinated in red wine with vanilla ice cream, tasted positively slapdash, as if the figs had been put into the wine just before serving.

If this is the only legacy La Serre has to offer us at present, I, for one, am hoping for a joyous renaissance.

Suggested dishes: organic tomato and Maui onions, $7; foie gras chaud, $22; tournedos de saumon, $24; carre d’agneau, $28.

La Serre, 12969 Ventura Blvd . , Studio City, (818) 990-0500. Lunch noon-2:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; dinner 6-10:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Full bar. Valet parking. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, $80-$150.