RESTAURANT REVIEW : How a Dream Dissolves in <i> Soupe du Jour</i>

Years ago, my playwright friend Henry always used to promise me that when he sold his first film property, he’d take me out to lunch at Le Petit Chateau. He himself was treated to lunch there once around 15 years ago, when a studio executive took a fleeting interest in one of his first plays.

Henry has been writing for television for several years now, so one day I asked him if he had any interest in going to dinner at Le Petit Chateau. It took a moment for his memory to engage. Then he cried, “Of course! I forgot all about that place. I used to want to be there more than any place on earth.”

A few nights later, we walked up to the front door of a half-timbered miniature castle on Lankershim. “That lunch was the happiest I’ve ever been,” he reminisced. “There I was, 23 or 24 years old, in a fancy adult restaurant with a hot-shot producer. At least I thought he was a hot shot, since he knew all the waitresses. There were all these craggy-looking men with beautiful young women. The bill came, and I saw it added up to a week’s salary at my CETA job. I thought my script was sold, my worries were over; that I’d died and gone to heaven.”

We stepped inside, and paused for our eyes to adjust to the dark bar. A waitress took us to a green booth set with wooden plates.

We sat down, and there was a long silence while we looked around the room. Henry caught my eye. “Well, maybe my concept of heaven has changed a little over the years,” he said.

The interior of Le Petit Chateau is a landmark commemorating the Francophilia of the ‘50s and ‘60s. The walls are lined with copper molds, pitchers, plates, and tureens. There are stained-glass windows, backlighted. “Like Chartres,” I said.

“Actually, you could call this place the Chartres House,” said Henry, “although it mostly looks like a flea market that exploded.”

The atmosphere is padded, dark, far away from the reality of North Hollywood. The booths are very private. Unlike so many of today’s big noisy high-rent bistros, Le Petit Chateau provides a chance for the quiet intimate chat out of sight and hearing of other customers. Tonight, in so far as we could see our fellow diners, we were one of three couples present.

The menu was likewise old-fashioned, full of classic old-school imported French dishes: bearnaise sauces, steaks, sweetbreads, Caesar salads.

We started with Caesar salad, which our waitress prepared at a cart rolled up to our table. She mashed garlic and anchovies, added a few rather generous dollops of mustard, squeezed in a lemon through a napkin, and threw an egg into the mixture. Personally, I argue that the egg should go directly onto the lettuce at the end, but so few people do this I’ve become less finicky on this point. I was happy to see that she didn’t beat the egg too much, which meant it might not be too disgustingly thickened by the lemon, so I was still optimistic until it came the time when olive oil would ordinarily be added.

“This is the secret,” she said and showed us an opaque white substance in a little pitcher. Clearly, not olive oil. My heart sank, and indeed the final product tasted like an overly doctored commercial creamy Italian-style dressing. “At least it’s not too gluey,” Henry said.

After the salad, we had cups of soupe du jour, which today was a grainy potato-leek. It tasted floury and was full of celery and stray bits of bacon, but no discernible leeks. “I didn’t really care about the Caesar salad not being so good,” said Henry, “but I’m very disappointed in this soup.”

My entree was calf’s liver, and I have to say it was perfectly cooked: delicate, tender and thoroughly delicious. Henry wasn’t so lucky. He had ordered the steak Diane, which came with a mushroom sauce loaded with capers and proved to be one of the most ghastly things I’ve had to taste in a long time, like beef in a vinegary pickle sauce.

By the time we were done, Henry was very glum. “I’m really sorry that your meal wasn’t very good,” I said to him.

He shrugged. “I don’t know what’s worse--the food, or having my memory corrected,” he said with a little laugh. “Anyway, maybe dinner isn’t the meal to have here; maybe lunch is still a big deal.”

I returned to have lunch a few days later--sans Henry, who said he’d had enough time travel for the time being. I took my friend Laurie, who works over at Warner Bros. Le Petit Chateau was busier at lunch, although far from full. We did see a craggy gent with a very young woman, and Laurie recognized a few of her acquaintances from the Creative Department in her building.

My lunch, le club sandwich, came with soupe du jour, this time a cream of asparagus that was virtually identical to the potato leek--same graininess, same floury taste--except in one respect: It looked as if it had been dyed green, the unabashed Kelly green of food coloring, which in no way resembled the green of cooked asparagus.

Laurie quipped that it was a “ruined roux ruse.” Otherwise, the club sandwich, which was made with white chicken meat and came with a fresh fruit cup, was perfectly good, as was Laurie’s Cobb salad.

The service was leisurely, but I’d hesitate to say slow. This is not a restaurant for hour lunches; rather, it’s a place to settle in, negotiate, tell long stories, drink and stay for the duration. This insulated, anachronistic room is far, far removed from Lankershim Boulevard; for all we could tell, it could have been winter outside, with snow and ski lifts. In fact, judging by the cuisine, it could have been winter of 1965.

Recommended dishes: calf’s liver, $16.25 (at lunch, $9.75); le club sandwich, $8.75.

Le Petit Chateau, 4615 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood; (818) 769-1812. Lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; dinner from 4:30 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $42 to $60.