Haute Cuisine Treat at a Reasonable Price

One of the county’s very best chefs caught the food establishment by surprise several years ago when he left Bertrand Hug’s chic La Maison du Lac (which later closed) to open a combined cafe and catering service called Vincent Grumel’s Cuisine a la Carte.

No one blamed Grumel for wanting a place of his own--what could be more natural for a chef? But his departure from one of the area’s few full-service palaces of haute cuisine brought sighs from those who feared being deprived of Grumel’s superlative confit de canard (preserved duck), celestial gratin dauphinoise (potatoes, garlic and cream baked together into a marvelous, melting cake) and thoroughly indulgent bavarois au chocolat, a dessert of remarkable complexity and richness.

Grumel recently returned from self-imposed exile in the land of deluxe carry-out to open Vincent’s, a handsome little place in Encinitas.

It seems reasonable to propose, although the year isn’t half over, that Vincent’s will be the most important new North County restaurant of 1987. However, a couple of ritzy Italian eateries will open soon so we will have to wait and see.

Other restaurateurs could learn from Grumel’s new venture. Although the cooking, service and decor all place Vincent’s in the luxury category, Grumel was careful to open with prices generally below those he probably could command. Entrees cost $15 to $19, including a choice of soup or salad, and are a lagniappe almost unimaginable in a top French house. By skipping appetizers, sharing dessert (the pastries are immense) and dealing moderately with the wine list, it is possible to leave with the wallet not all that lightened, bearing in mind that this is a deluxe establishment.

Grumel has been in this country more than a decade but hasn’t forgotten the principles by which chef-patrons (chef-proprietors) run their establishments in his native France. He has assembled fine kitchen and dining room crews, even though most restaurateurs claim--with reason--that good help is hard to find. Grumel remodeled the premises (formerly Samuel’s, a purveyor of Cajun cuisine and game) and it is quite pretty, in a carefree and rather clever way.

It is well to start with a mention of Vincent’s bavarois au chocolat, a dessert that is the zenith of gastronomic hedonism. This round of richness looks innocent enough on the outside, a shell of creamy, velvety, tongue-caressing vanilla Bavarian cream. But the deceptively innocent-looking cream conceals a heart of chocolate mousse and crumbly genoise cake. This would be enough, but Grumel goes on to bathe the whole in both custard and bittersweet chocolate sauces, and surrounds the serving with strawberries and orange segments. It is $3.50 at lunch, $5.50 at dinner and worth every penny.

The overall tone of the menu is conservative. There isn’t a lot of wild experimenting going on here--Grumel seems more inclined to produce excellent dishes, prepared along classic lines, than to try out novelties on his guests. Although everything is sauced (as it should be; French cooking is nothing without sauces), the dishes tend to be light, and the garnishes simple. All plates include a selection of baby vegetables collected daily from Chino’s truck farm in Rancho Santa Fe. These always are cooked briefly but well, and served without complication. For starch, Grumel sometimes offers his magnificent gratin dauphinoise, but more often a wedge of straw potato cake, crisply browned in rendered duck fat. (This last is a typical and delicious French.)

The restaurant turns out puff pastry, rich in butter and so light in texture that it rises to the heights. This pastry turns up in every section of the menu, notably in the pissaladieres, or Nice-style pizzas, that are offered as appetizers. The version that includes a topping of cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and cepe mushrooms is pleasant, and it also serves to introduce the herbal motif that reoccurs frequently in Grumel’s cooking. There is plenty of fresh oregano in this pie.

Among other starters are a plate of spaghettini doused with a fresh and heavily herbed tomato sauce; truffled duck liver mousse; terrine of duck; duck breast salad over mixed greens (yes, there is a lot of duck at this restaurant); marinated shrimp baked in puff pastry, and daily specials. These last can be quite wonderful; a recent salad of excellent greens was topped with hot, freshly sauteed shrimp, scallops and smoked salmon, and dressed with a creamy vinaigrette flavored with orange peel.

Both the simple house green salad and the day’s soup, almost always a cream of some vegetable, are consistently excellent.

Among the standing entrees, the duck confit and the canard au citron vert, or roast duckling in a sauce of lime and honey, probably take top honors. The latter is wonderfully moist and meaty. The sweetness is tempered by fresh lime juice, which gives this dish impressive balance.

Another winner is the rack of lamb roasted in a covering of mixed Provencal herbs, which Grumel uses so lavishly that they spill off the flesh and mingle deliciously with the vegetables and potatoes. Garlic also permeates the meat, which is tender, almost gamey in flavor (thanks partly to the herbs), and best when rather rare. A bouquet of deep fried parsley adds a suave note to the plate.

Among other meat choices are a respectable New York steak in Cabernet Sauvignon sauce, good when a bottle of the same wine is on the table; a thick veal chop, either grilled with rosemary or sauteed and dressed with a smooth Port wine sauce; filet of pork sauteed with apples and flamed in Calvados, and veal scallops dressed with capers, shallot, lemon and red bell peppers.

Generally speaking, the daily seafood specials are more interesting than the menu’s standing seafood offerings. One recently impressive special topped a thick, beautifully grilled swordfish steak with a hollandaise that had been tinted and flavored with avocado; the sauce was light, a little too lemony, but enjoyable, and certainly exemplary for its imaginative use of avocado. Another special, an elegant hot salmon mousse baked in a souffle dish, was rather too strongly flavored. There may have been too much onion or shallot, or it may have been that the reduced essences of the oysters at the heart of the mousse were too pungent.

The dessert list begins with the bavarois. Grumel uses his supply of puff pastry to construct glamorous, enormous Napoleons, which come out of the oven nightly at 6 p.m., and are never held over for the following day. Even better is the classic tarte Tatin, an upside-down tart of apples baked with sugar and butter; these last two ingredients caramelize into an extravagantly delicious substance.

The prices at lunch are about half of those charged in the evening, and the luncheon menu, while less complicated, is quite elegant.

Among entree-sized salads is a fine version of the currently popular Oriental chicken salad, a tumble of greens, vegetables and thin noodles dressed with a soy-based sauce, and crowned with a coronet of sliced chicken breast dredged in sesame seeds.

Continuing in the chicken motif, Grumel offers a chicken turnover that is a truly Franco-American dish; the stewed white meat is mixed with peas and carrots and a light gravy, but the pastry that encloses it is pate feuillete (puff pastry), and the whole is moistened with a beurre blanc, or butter sauce.

In addition to such hot entrees as grilled salmon, broiled baby lamb chops, homemade sausage in pastry and broiled chicken breast on a bed of spinach, Grumel offers a luncheon special or two. One of these, a sauteed filet of baby lamb topped with a forest mushroom sauce, was magnificent in preparation, presentation and flavor. It cost $10.50.

VINCENT’S

581 Westlake St., Encinitas

944-5617

Lunch served Monday through Friday, dinner Monday through Saturday.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, including a moderate bottle of wine, tax and tip, $60 to $90.