The Gossiping Gourmet:

Handsome and refined but not stuffy, Pinot Provence is the South Coast outpost of Joachim Splichal’s Patina Group, along with Leatherby’s Café Rouge. This famous Los Angeles chef is slowly building an empire of attractive restaurants with consistently good food.

Authentic Provençal French food is the star here, with classics like escargots, soupe a l’oignon, moules frites and magret de canard. The high-ceiling dining room looks like the great hall of a chateau in Avignon. The entry is a stone archway leading into a spacious room with chandeliers hanging from the wood-beamed ceiling and soft lighting from discretely spaced lamps. The décor is in soft tones of beige with a large stone fireplace, a huge floral arrangement in the center of the room, antique furniture and crisp white linens on the table; all creating a warm and comfortable ambience.

The very first clue that this is a French restaurant is the bread, not just filler but two excellent quality selections from La Brea Bakery. It was hard to stop eating the rustic loaf, topped with onion and cheese with a fabulous crunchy crust and chewy interior, while we saved the equally good plain version for soaking up sauces in the French style.

It is hard to find frog legs on menus in the U.S., so we order these delicate little limbs whenever they appear. If you’ve never tasted them, you are in for a treat. They are very light in flavor, like slightly sweet chicken with a finer texture. These were particularly good because they were small and very tender. These were simply sautéed rather than breaded, as one might expect. They were accompanied by two sauces, a harissa butter for heat and a basil-cilantro emulsion with a creamy, subtle herb flavor. Mixing the two together made a perfect dipping sauce for these diminutive delicacies, and whatever was left over was quickly sopped up with the bread.

The bread came in handy again after we had demolished our moules frites (mussels and French fries). The plump, sweet, tender mussels were prepared in the classic style: steamed in white wine, lemon and parsley, but instead of the traditional cream, chef Lulu DeRouen substitutes crème fraîche, adding a subtle, interesting, tart flavor to the dish. The generous portion of thin fries was golden and crunchy.

The fish of the day was barramundi, which is also the fish of the moment (sustainable and plentiful). It was nicely seared with a crispy skin, but the fish was bland and slightly overcooked. The accompanying mascarpone gnocchi were gluey, and the brown butter beurre blanc was humdrum.

A simple roast chicken is a good test of the chef’s skills, and Pinot turns out a tasty one. In particular, the skin was beautifully browned and crispy, and the flesh of this marinated rotisserie bird was still moist. It was served with a bit of jus that also gave flavor to the fingerling potatoes. The dish was completed with nicely cooked haricots verts, topped with roasted shallots. It was lacking a distinctive touch to make it special.

A few traditional beef selections include boeuf en daube (shortrib and veal cheek stew), entrecote (16-ounce rib-eye) and la bavette (grilled flank steak).

The dessert menu includes a de rigeur cheese platter. We moved on directly to the galette de pommes, which is a rustic round, flat pastry folded over fruit.

The generous, nicely cooked apple filling was wrapped in a simple but bland crust.

The drizzle of caramel was welcome; we wished for more.

It’s interesting to note that you can bring your own wine without paying a corkage fee, a nice feature of many Patina Group restaurants.

Pinot Provence

Contact: (714) 444-5900 or patinagroup.com

Where: 686 Anton Blvd., Costa Mesa

When:

Breakfast: 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday, 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday (includes brunch)

Lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday

Dinner: 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Prices:

Appetizers: $6 to $28

Entrées: $17 to $38

Desserts: $6 to $9

Wine:

Bottles: $36-$1855

Half-bottles $45 to $205

By the glass: $9 to $20

Corkage Fee: none, except for special events and holidays.

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