An Everyday Brasserie Finds Its Way to Beverly Hills

Somehow, while I wasn’t looking, “the most Parisian restaurant in L.A.”--as Brasserie des Artistes’ letterhead puts it--appeared on the corner of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards. Gone was the Chinese restaurant I passed every day, and in its place a brasserie that could have been beamed over from Paris, chef and all.

Mind you, it is not one of those perfectly restored brasseries with miles of polished brass, stunning boiserie and stained glass windows that revel in bringing La Belle Epoque back to a semblance of life. This is more your basic, everyday brasserie, the kind of place where the entire neighborhood stops in for a beer and a steak frites, a petit creme and a smoke.

Here, the sidewalk tables look out on a parking lot instead of a bustling boulevard, and the people-watching possibilities are, in fact, slim. Inside, the walls are decorated with lurid French movie posters--there’s a young Moreau and an even younger Bardot, classy Anouk Aimee and the ruggedly handsome Jean Gabon. Along the top of the walls is a row of 8-by-10 glossies of a whole panoply of French stars from Maurice Chevalier to a glowering Belmondo.

Our waiter admits he’s the sole American working here when he stumbles over the pronunciation of a dish. Oh, yes, the chef is French. And so is everyone else, he assures us. In fact, the chef, Jean Pierre Giron, is a winner of the culinary prize Bocuse d’Or.

The menu is certainly standard French, not very inspired, but well executed. There’s an excellent terrine de foie gras, a generous slab of marbled pink duck liver accompanied by sparkling diced gelee or gelatin, and also a nice rendition of escargots in an emerald parsley butter. For once the snails don’t taste like pencil erasers.

When one of our party orders the Champagne oysters, the waiter checks with the kitchen and comes back to say they don’t have enough. I’d rather have them run out than serve oysters that aren’t fresh on a Monday night. The gratineed mussels she chooses instead are fine, served in their shell on a bed of salt.

The frites are quite respectable, piping hot and crisp, but it’s a shame the steak au poivre is served already sliced, drowned in far too much sauce. Steak tartare, however, is nicely seasoned, and comes with plenty of hot toast. Jumbo scallop, though, would have been better off without the gluey risotto. The best dish that night was a soulful choucroute, a real trencherman’s dish of sauerkraut piled with smoked pork chop, pig’s knuckle, poached bacon and delicious pork sausage simmered in Alsatian Riesling. When fall finally shows up, this dish will be making its siren call.

Somehow I can’t imagine a garden burger on the menu of a brasserie in Paris--but that’s Beverly Hills for you. Potential diners with lots of techno toys will be happy to note that Brasserie des Artistes has its own Web site: https://www.brasseriedesartistes.com. What, I ask you, could be more French?

BE THERE

Brasserie des Artistes, 8300 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills; (323) 655-6196. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Dinner appetizers $7 to $18; main courses $14 to $24; tasting menus at $25 and $35.