THE GALLIVANTING GOURMET: Dining with old-fashioned gentility

Stepping into Basilic is like finding a sweet little storefront restaurant on a side street in Old Town Geneva. The décor in this tiny 24-seat bistro can be described as quaint and cozy. There are floral-grapevine patterned banquettes along the two walls with an aisle in between just large enough for the server to wend his way back and forth from the kitchen.

The dark knotty pine walls have faux windows on one side with scenic pictures behind them. On the walls there are little shelves filled with curios and a few old books about Switzerland. Old-fashioned tulip-shaped glass fixtures give off a warm glow. The whole atmosphere gives you the impression of stepping back in time, as do the menu, portion size and presentation.

There aren’t many restaurants like this in Southern California. The chef/owner, Bernard Althus, runs the kitchen and prepares every dish to order while his wife, Arlette, greets the guests. Bernard comes from a small town in French Switzerland, where he was born in a hotel room above his family’s restaurant. “My first smell was that of food. It’s been in my blood to be a chef from the very day I was born,” he says.

He named his restaurant after his favorite herb and spends a fair amount of time in his garden growing the herbs and tomatoes he uses in the restaurant.

Many dishes on the small menu reflect his background. Classic French/Swiss hors’d’oeuvres include: raclette (a slice of grilled cheese, served with fingerling potatoes, cornichons and pickled onions), braised Belgian endive or Swiss charcuterie. Of course, there is a version of onion soup. Among the entrées, you will find bouillabaisse, coq au vin and steak au poivre and for dessert crème brulée and tarte Tatin.

The old-fashioned European equivalent of a tasting menu is the prix-fixe dinner offered here in five courses with soup, salad, fish, sorbet, meat and dessert, selected from the evening’s offerings but in smaller portions for $59.50. However, the prix-fixe menu must be ordered by everyone at your table. This appeared to be the choice of most of the guests on the evening we dined.

The first Tuesday of every month is raclette night, featuring raclette as the entrée, with soup, salad and dessert. Two versions are offered, one as described above and the other, with three kinds of charcuterie, Bundnerfleish, prosciutto and saucisson sec.

If there is foie gras on the menu, you can be sure we’ll order it. This was an excellent piece of duck liver, creamy smooth, rich and delicately flavored. Seared nicely, it was served on a grilled slice of baguette with a blackberry sauce and baby asparagus. The three items on the plate were all delicious by themselves but did not particularly complement or enhance one another.

Basilic’s version of bouillabaisse is more like a stew than a soup, with a scallop, two shrimp, two small pieces of fish and baby vegetables, all tasting very fresh. A dollop of seasoned, mashed potatoes replaces the expected garlic toast and can be stirred in to flavor the sauce. The promised saffron was no more than a promise and rouille (spicy garlic mayonnaise), the standard kicker-upper, is apparently not to be found in the more sedate Swiss version.

Our gracious waiter recommended the St. Pierre en croute d’epice and we were happy that we consented to his advice. The two small, moist filets were delicately coated with thyme-scented breadcrumbs, sautéed in butter and finished with a sherry beurre blanc accompanied by sautéed spinach and more of those delicious mashed potatoes.

Not so Swiss is the duo of scallops and Mexican white shrimp in an orange soy glaze served with braised endives or the seafood risotto (although the Parmesan cheese in this dish is replaced by Swiss gruyere).

Meat-eaters will find a rack of lamb with a mustard rosemary crust in an olive demi-glace sauce. There is also a veal scallop in a brandied mushroom cream sauce. One of our favorites is breast of duck (magret de canard). Bernard prepares it medium rare with a sauce du jour. On this occasion, it was blueberry.

If you are dining in the European manner, your next course would be cheese: five or six selections accompanied by bread, walnuts, and grapes or pears. Then comes dessert. Basilic serves three classic desserts: chocolate torte with crème Anglaise, crème brulée with mixed berries and tarte Tatin with vanilla ice cream.

We have never met a tarte Tatin we didn’t like and this was no exception. We’ve had many different versions: sliced, halved or quartered apples, lots or just a few, light caramel, dark caramel, classic tart crust, puff pastry crust, soggy crust, no crust. In this instance, the puff pastry crust appeared to have been baked separately, then topped with a mountain of warm, well-caramelized sliced apples. This prepared-to-order technique yields a crispy crust and apples that retain their texture. The classic version uses a buttery dough (paté brisée) that is placed on top and tucked around caramelized apples and baked, then flipped over to serve, although this method sometimes results in over-cooked apples.

Our only real complaint is that a Swiss-French restaurant ought to be serving a decent baguette as the sauces here are very good and require mopping up. Their soft-crusted cottony white bread (quelle horreur!) just won’t do.

The pleasures of dining in a small intimate old-world style restaurant are found infrequently these days. The new trend is toward ever bigger and glitzier with décor valued over dinner. Presentation is often complex with stacking and layering a multitude of ingredients, supplanting considerations of taste.

It makes for a nice change to dine quietly, be offered sensible-sized portions in the European style and feel like you have spent an evening beyond Orange County.

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ owned a la Carte for 20 years and can be reached at themarkos755@yahoo.com.