A charming little bistro by starlight

What’s better than eating outside on a summer night? That’s when L.A. really does seem like a paradise. You’re under the stars. The humidity’s negligible. You’d have to try hard to rustle up a mosquito or two. And if there’s the tiniest nip in the air, well, there’s always last year’s pashmina to throw over your shoulders.

Come evening, Cafe Stella in Silver Lake spreads out into the courtyard behind Sunset Junction. The discreet neon sign sprouting from the funky burnt orange building shows a red star with Cafe Stella spelled out in blue against the sky. Tables are set out in rows, with white cloths flung on top and French bistro chairs woven in a plaid of red and gold. Potted olive trees, oleander and lavender mark the perimeter, and overhead, strings of amber turn the courtyard into a tiny square.

At a turquoise-painted table, a group of friends enjoys aperitifs. One sips a tall glass of Chimay, the wonderfully complex Belgian beer, the others a pretty rose-colored Kir. From the sidewalk, you can look down into the first of two small rooms, each more bar than dining room, with only a handful of tables. At the small bar cluttered with bottles, flowers, bric-a-brac, a couple hold hands, ardently gazing into each others’ eyes. In terms of romance, Cafe Stella will definitely do in lieu of an airline ticket to Paris. Two stools over, hipster Francophiles and assorted expatriates lean forward, intent on their conversation, their glasses of rouge forgotten, their hands itching for a cigarette.

The French use cafes as their extended living rooms. And if Cafe Stella were open for lunch, or all through the afternoon, it would be the kind of place where the neighborhood’s writers manque would spend the afternoon, nursing a bitter coffee or a citron presse, scribbling in their moleskin notebooks. But alas, it’s only open for dinner.

Never mind. Cafe Stella feels so much like a raffish cafe in a hip Paris quartier that you don’t even expect great food -- and somehow, that’s OK. Along with some of the world’s greatest restaurants, France is filled with perfectly ordinary little cafes and bistros, many of them with food that can only be described as mediocre. Cafe Stella would fit in perfectly.

The menu is brief and to the point, supplemented by the specials scribbled on blackboards hanging outside and in. Look there first, because the dishes inevitably sound more interesting than the mundane ones on the regular menu. Waiters will give you a verbal run-through too.

The cafe is one of the few restaurants I’ve ever found in this country that has pepper grinders and salt on the table. It may not seem remarkable, but it’s such a relief not to have to go through the ritual torture of having a yard-long pepper mill waved in your face and someone demand to know whether you’d like pepper -- before you’ve had a chance to try a bite.

One of the best ways to start a meal at Cafe Stella is with a charcuterie plate served on a wooden board. Usually, it’s a little jambon cru (raw-cured ham), some rosette (a type of salami) and another serviceable dry sausage, plus a slab of pate de campagne, which you can order on its own as well. This is one pate that really tastes like the rustic pork and liver terrine it’s supposed to be; the puckery cornichons are a perfect foil.

What is more French than chevre? Here, you can have creamy fresh goat cheese spread on a baguette with a little tapenade, the ever-ready puree of wine-dark olives, garlic and olive oil that is a staple of the south of France. The mesclun salad that comes with it, though, is a little sad: tired baby greens tossed in a dreary balsamic dressing.

A small round of chevre works to better effect, crusted with pecans and warmed in the oven. The quality of the goat cheese, though, won’t make any converts: This one is as generic as they come, so lacking in character that anybody who loves chevre will be disappointed. Why the kitchen insists on serving a cheese of such poor quality when one of L.A.’s best suppliers, the Cheese Store of Silver Lake, is right next door is perplexing.

That indifference to the quality of ingredients runs throughout the menu, from the salad greens and vegetables to the seafood and meats.

It’s hard to fathom why anyone would create a special around woody white asparagus. Well, maybe it wasn’t meant to be the star, but it certainly stuck out in the company of marinated baby artichokes, which were quite good, and sliced red and gold beets.

The soup of the day, thankfully, is not the ubiquitous vegetable puree. One night I had a subtly delicious mushroom soup made with just brown mushrooms, stock and a little cream (I doubt the words “no meat, no dairy” ever passed the lips of a waiter here). Another night, it was a chilled tomato gazpacho, which would have been incredibly refreshing if it hadn’t been over-doused with vinegar.

And if you must, there are escargots in plenty of impossibly rich, garlicky sauce. That baguette was just made to soak it up.

Competent and traditional

Main courses follow a more limited repertoire. There’s steak au poivre, bien sur. The beef itself won’t induce raptures, but the sauce is competent enough, though a bit short on the peppercorns and long on the cream. Fortunately, the pepper grinder is at the ready. Frites have just the barest hint of color, which may make them all the more authentic. That is, if you’re remembering the fries sold from corner stands in Paris or any other big city in France. The rib-eye special one night is what the French call an entrecote, served without the bone and with not all that much flavor. Suffice it to say the caramelized shallot I tease out of its skin is the best thing on the plate. Double-cut lamb chops are satisfying enough, just like the ones my friend Mireille used to make for me, stirring a little mustard and cream into the pan juices.

Another classic, tarragon chicken, is hard to make work with a bland, commercial chicken. The shrimp in a sea bass and shrimp duo don’t have the bright taste of fresh ones. And butter-poached lobster is like rubber.

Service is brisk and alert, except when it comes to wine. The reds are usually too warm, and if you ask for an ice bucket to cool the bottle down, it can sometimes mean you’re left sitting there, sans wine, while the waiter finds one and remembers to bring it. The glasses sometimes smell of the chlorine used in the rinse water. Cafe Stella is not alone. It’s happened so often lately I try to remember to check the glasses before the waiter pours.

The wine list is very French too, made up of mostly obscure little wines, well-priced, but sometimes not the best representatives of their appellation. A Crozes-Hermitage might be a bit thin, a Sancerre a bit tart. But it does include a nice little list of Champagnes from small growers. And if you order a serious red, the waiters will manage to rustle up some bigger wineglasses.

Come dessert, though, the kitchen finally wakes up. Do indulge in the cool, silky pot au chocolat, the ultimate chocolate pudding with a dab of whipped cream. Creme brulee is classique, which means it comes in a deep ramekin so the custard stays cold beneath its burnt sugar crust. Sometimes there’s a respectable tarte au citron too. As I motion for the bill, I notice the couple that were already on their entrees when I came in are still at their table, finishing a coffee, lingering over dessert, saving that last bite of luscious creme brulee for last.

Most nights, Cafe Stella feels like a successful party where everything clicks and nobody wants to leave. Fortunately, in this neighborhood, the dinner hour extends to 10 or 11 p.m. Those tables outside are highly coveted, but not usually reserved or promised. If you want one, you’ll probably have to wait. It would be a perfect time to discover the art of l’aperitif.

The illusion of a textbook Paris bistro is so letter perfect, I sometimes try to hypnotize myself into thinking the food is better than it is. Any such idea ends when the bill comes. Since Cafe Stella opened six years ago, prices have crept steadily upward. It’s no longer an inexpensive little restaurant. My bill always seems to be close to $70 a person. And for those kinds of prices, unless you don’t plan to really eat, you expect more than a lovely atmosphere.

Or should I rethink it? At the bottom of my bill is printed these words: “Has anybody told you that they love you today? ... We do.”

*

Cafe Stella

Rating: *

Location: Sunset Junction, 3932 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles; (323) 666-0265

Ambience: Raffish, slightly down-at-heels cafe with an interesting L.A.-French vibe. The courtyard, strung with amber-colored lights and dotted with potted olive and lavender, is lovely. Inside, the decor is pitch-perfect enough that you think you’re in one of the hipper quartiers of Paris.

Service: Pleasant and skilled

Price: Appetizers, $8 to $14; main courses, $17 to $34; desserts, $6

Best dishes: Charcuterie plate, soupe du jour, lamb chops in mustard sauce, pot au chocolat, creme brulee

Wine list: Modest list of mostly French wines from small estates. Corkage, $20.

Best table: The last table in the outdoor courtyard

Details: Open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday from 6 to 11 p.m.. Beer and wine. Lot and street parking.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.