In Olympics for Restaurants, This One Would Win the Gold

It may be best to maintain one’s reserve--to keep one’s cool, in fact--when reviewing restaurants, but a pair of dinners at the Marius dining room at the new Le Meridien hotel in Coronado swept such restraint aside.

It would be easy to say that the menu was a revelation. But, more than that, the cooking was so vivid, so fresh, so inspiriting that it was like discovering the existence of Mozart in a musical world that had seemed limited to Bruce Springsteen and U2.

The traveling Frenchman’s gastronomic bible, the Michelin restaurant guide, designates about 30 of the thousands of eateries in France as worthy of three stars, and perhaps 100 display two of the coveted symbols. The Le Meridien chain has the admirable policy of hiring the proprietors of these stellar restaurants to counsel its overseas dining rooms, with the result that the best of France now is available in selected locations worldwide.

For Marius, Le Meridien chose Jany Gleize of the two-star La Bonne Etape in Chateau-Arnoux, in the very heart of herb-scented Provence, to design a menu that exhales the fragrances of wild thyme, lavender, verbena, hyssop and mint. Gleize will visit periodically to supervise the kitchen, but has installed as his permanent vice regent young Olivier Rispoli, a 21-year-old who whirls his wire whisk with more imagination than half the county’s cooks combined.

All this comes at a price, of course--appetizers average $10, and entrees run from $18 to $28--so that a full-blown dinner for two will cost about $130 including cocktails, a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip. This is costly, but no higher than at San Diego’s other top restaurants, and for anyone willing to part with such a sum, Marius seems well worth it.

Reassuring Formality

The dining room breathes an easy, reassuring formality, the service correct (in the true French sense) but far from overweening. The details, such as the heavy, highly polished silver, including fish knives and flat spoons for scooping up sauces, lend to the sense of understated luxury implied by the rich color scheme, the oil paintings of ripe fruits and the gleaming chandeliers.

If the French, and their cooking, can at times be pompous and overwrought, they also can be thoughtfully playful. Only this predilection for edible amusement could account for such dishes as the dessert of pineapple in black pepper sauce. Clever, fresh, insouciant, sly and absolutely delightful, this wry dish of grilled pineapple atop a butter cookie croustade was doused with a wonderfully silly sauce of caramel, orange juice and a few grindings of pepper. The effect, neither hot nor weird, nonetheless made a transition from the mannered to the exotic, rather like the experience of drowsing off on a sleeping car in Paris and awakening in Marrakech.

The dishes generally are a little more serious than the pineapple, but no less delicious, because Gleize has transferred much of his La Bonne Etape menu to Marius.

Meals begin with complimentary amuse-gueules (“mouth-amusers”), or small hors d’oeuvres that set an elegant tone. One evening, Marius served a poached oyster, replaced in the shell over a puddle of limpid, lovely champagne sauce and garnished with a thick slice of black truffle. Another time, the kitchen sent tiny oval pastry cases filled with brandade , a heady puree of cod, garlic, mustard and olive oil. Meals end on a similarly pleasant note with the presentation of a plate of sweets, such as chocolate truffles, cherries soaked in kirsch and dipped in dark chocolate, and crisp caramel cookies.

The restaurant does not now offer daily specials, but with so extraordinary a menu there seems no need to do so. One should order carefully, though; a suggested menu for meat-eaters would be the sweetbreads and morel mushrooms in puff pastry, followed by the lamb medallions and the chocolate terrines. Those in the mood for fish might consider the crab salad, the monkfish flavored with rosemary and the grilled pineapple.

The menu utterly avoids green salads, probably in the belief that Californians already get all the roughage they can handle. It does offer a trio of soups, however--a lobster consomme, a fish soup scented with verbena, and a cold avocado cream with mint. This last seems a conscious bow to San Diego’s avocado crop. More a liquid salad served in a bowl than a real soup, this thin avocado puree is garnished with balls of avocado flesh and splashed with what amounts to a vinaigrette of chopped tomato, mint, oil and vinegar. It is delicious and refreshing, and quite on the light side.

The Best Appetizer

The feuillete d’asperge et de ris de veau aux morilles was quite possibly--and this is making quite a statement--the best appetizer this writer ever has tasted. Wedges of the most gossamer puff pastry hid miser’s hoards of sweetbread nuggets and morel mushrooms in a perfect Madeira sauce. This itself would have been a passport to gastronomic nirvana, but the plate also contained a fan of baby asparagus, arranged over an asparagus puree and glamorously burdened with fat slices of black truffle. It may seem frivolous to call a dish breath-taking, but . . . .

Other appetizers approached this perfection. The cold terrine of lamb was actually the classic Provencal daube , or gently stewed meat encased in its own jellied juices. Marius finished it with a vinaigrette of chopped tomato and mixed Provencal herbs, among which thyme was given prominence. The crab salad, dressed in a sauce of sea urchin roe, was as likable for the exquisite garnishes as for the main ingredient; the large mound of crab flakes was flanked by a stuffed zucchini blossom, a hot, heavily herbed tomato concasse (stewed chopped tomatoes) and a salad of green and wax beans decorated with truffle shavings. An astonishing sunburst of flavors erupted off this plate.

Among the entrees, the sauteed tuna would be remarkable at any other restaurant, but here it came in dead last. The meaty slice of fish was spread with tapenade , the Provencal relish of crushed olives, anchovies and capers, and rested atop an unlikely, burnt umber sauce composed of tomatoes, apples, garlic and bitter chocolate. This last made it seem like a Mexican mole , and hinted that Gleize may have visited Tijuana while writing the Marius menu.

The monkfish, sauced in its own poaching liquid infused with rosemary and thickened with French butter (the richly yellow butter gilded the sauce like saffron), was a much better choice. A thin gallette , or crown, of browned sliced potatoes offered crispness and another flavor; coy groupings of tiny vegetable balls and steamed miniature leeks surrounded the fish.

Perfumed With Thyme

The roast lamb filet, thinly sliced and arranged in a pool of its own juices perfumed with thyme, demonstrated the virtue of simplicity when executed by knowledgeable hands. Lamb rarely tastes as good as this, and the sauce had the bouquet of a long-cellared Bordeaux. The dish arrived with its own special garnish, a tian , or cake, of sliced eggplant seasoned with herbs and tomato. A duck breast was similarly roasted, sliced and served in its own juices, this time flavored with lemon and lavender honey. The flavors blended brilliantly, and an added bonus was the accompanying and very rich gratin of creamed Swiss chard.

Any of the desserts should please, but look especially to the silky terrines of chocolate in fresh mint sauce, and the hot, baked-to-order “top hat” of puff pastry filled with pastry cream and crowned with caramelized apples.

In sum, Marius’ ranks as the restaurant opening of 1988, and probably the most significant entry of the last several years. The year will indeed be memorable should it bring another dining room of this caliber.

MARIUS

Le Meridien, 2000 2nd St., Coronado

435-3000

Dinner served nightly except Mondays.

Credit cards accepted.