The Bohemian

November 21, 2007

First Bite

French Garden

By Gretchen Giles

Snuggled on sheepskin throws on a couch before a fire, a disheveled couple feed one another with forks and fingers. Her hair has loosened from its tie and her face is flushed. He extends his fork, she takes a coy bite and makes a pretty moue with her mouth. She giggles. We shouldn't be watching this.

But the cozy fireside area of Sebastopol's French Garden Restaurant and Brasserie invites such intimacies. Just celebrating its first anniversary, the restaurant has a large, well-lit dining room and a nicely dim, comfortable bar where lovers may eat tucked away while musicians play.

The dining room's menu is French, which is a quaint oddity in Mediterranean-obsessed North Bay kitchens, and features such standards as escargot ($7), filet de beouf Wellington ($30) and chocolate soufflé (all desserts are $7). What makes the French Garden exceedingly different is that as much as possible, all fruit and produce come from what our server familiarly referred to as "Dan's farm."

"Dan" is co-owner Dan Smith, a community activist and former software developer. When foods come directly from an organic farm, they may be small and they may be misshapen—but they taste like real food. Those so-called baby carrots that woodenly dong out of plastic bags have nothing on Dan's baby carrots, which are truly small sweet roots pulled right from the earth and lightly sautéed.

Such poetic revelations extend hugely to that humble cruciferous known as broccoli; rarely has it been so exalted as at the French Garden. The Brit had the appetizer du jour, which on this jour consisted of perfect broccoli napped in a cheese gratin ($6). After sharing one grudging forkful begged for review purposes, he ate the whole dish silently, swiftly, greedily. Broccoli! Who knew?

I had the persimmon salad ($8) and couldn't be silent at all, a madwoman muttering to myself at table over the tiny plump huckleberries, the chopped, toasted hazelnuts, the pomegranate arils, the small lettuces and frisée, the perfect fans of perfectly ripe fuyu persimmon on the plate.

Stubbornly bent on bringing Merlot back into small favor, we chose the only bottle of California Merlot on the excellent French/American wine list, the fragrant Albini ($39).

For our large rations, the Brit had the New York steak ($27) with a shallot butter and served with tiny roasted beets, more little carrots and crisp pommes frites. My freshly caught medium-rare sea bass ($26) gleamed with a Meyer lemon sauce and sat upon salty Yukon gold mashed potatoes with its own raft of tiny perfect veg, including the storied broccoli. I shared none of it.

Too full for a bowl of Dan's berries, a slice of orange blossom cake or even an assortment of cheeses, we made our way to the bar. With a light menu that includes such as a steak sandwich, all priced at $6–$10, this is a great place to duck into without reservations.

We sat on sheepskin covers on a couch before the fire. We watched the man feed the woman. We looked at each other. We forgave all broccoli transgressions. Yes, we went home.

The Bohemian

September 27, 2007

Complete Cycle

In which our writer phones up restaurants looking for one

that composts because she thinks it's fun.

By Gianna de Persiis Vona

Just for fun, I decided to cold-call restaurants out of the phone book until I find one that composts. After all, if I can fill a one-gallon bucket every single day with food scraps, how much must a restaurant produce?

"Why should I compost? It will just breakdown in the landfills anyway, so what's the difference?" I have heard this pathetic excuse from people who refuse to compost so many times that I long ago lost count. No matter how many times I hear it, I never get over the stab of irritation that inevitably makes me snap something unattractive like, "Been to any landfills lately, Einstein? You actually believe that your food scraps compost? And how exactly, in this compressed and smothering environment, do you expect anything to breakdown?"

In response to my small act of guerilla investigative journalism, I receive a series of no's, which finally end with a miraculous "Yes," at the French Garden Restaurant in Sebastopol. Restaurant owners Joan Marler and Dan Smith compost the scraps from their kitchen at their nearby 30-acre organic farm, and it is this morsel of information that leads me not just to a composting restaurant, but to an organic garden, a way of life and a small community hospital struggling for survival.

Marler tells me that the reason she and Smith have the restaurant is because of the farm. It is the farm that drives their menu, their passion and their dream. "This is our way of manifesting our values in terms of how to live and be earth stewards, supporting local economy and eating locally," she says. "And how not to support this whole megabusiness of food that's coming from all over the world. The whole point is: what sustains life?" Their farm provides, almost exclusively, the fruits and vegetables used in the restaurant. Everything is fresh picked and delivered straight to the restaurant's kitchen, down to the flowers on the tables. Even the butter is churned fresh from local organic cream.

Marler and Smith are actively committed not only to growing and serving their own food, but to using the restaurant space as a positive place of interaction for the community. The last Wednesday of every month, the French Garden sponsors a free documentary series on peace, justice and sustainability; the first Sunday of every month there is an open mic for poets; and the last Sunday, up come the chairs, tables and carpets—and in come the band and the folk dancing.

I meet Smith at the restaurant, and he walks me through the bustling kitchen. The kitchen overflows with produce—tomatoes, lettuces, onions, herbs, multicolored peppers, chives, garlic, berries, apples, pears—all of it brought in fresh from the farm. Buckets of freshly pulled carrots wait to be washed, heirloom tomatoes are lined up on trays, fresh-made sauces and tapenades are in the cooler and edible flowers await. I am surrounded by a priceless array of organic food, and am struck momentarily by an almost overwhelming case of kitchen envy that dissolves into admiration when Smith shows me where the kitchen scraps are collected into trash bags. These scraps are taken back up to the farm, mixed in with composted duck manure, and then turned back into the ground to feed the farm so that, as Smith puts it, the cycle is complete.

Along with running the farm and the restaurant, Smith is director of business and strategic development for Palm Drive Hospital, a volunteer position of utmost importance for this hospital, which is all too often teetering at the brink of extinction. He and Marler have, on more than one occasion, been personally responsible for helping to provide the funding necessary to keep Palm Drive open and functioning. Smith insists, "A hospital isn't just a corner store. You don't just let your hospital close!" To this end, the French Garden will host a fundraiser for Palm Drive Hospital on Sept. 30, providing the entire banquet free of charge, which means that 100 percent of the ticket price goes directly to saving the hospital.

As I drive home, it occurs to me that there must be something more to people who compost. On the surface, composting may seem like a small thing. After all, what is a little decomposition compared to the perilous nature of existence? But the facts are irrefutable, and once again I have been shown proof that composting is, indeed, indicative of so much more.

The Press Democrat

Sunday, December 3, 2006

by Jeff Cox

French Garden aptly named:

Menu based on fresh, organic vegetables, fruits

from owners' farm

When Dan Smith and Joan Marler bought their 30-acre farm west of Sebastopol more than 20 years ago, he ran a construction company and she taught dance and ancient mythology. They always had a garden and loved growing their own food.

At about the time they bought their farm, Smith created the Master Builder software program, which became, over the next two decades, the most popular software for small- and medium-sized contractors. It was subsequently purchased by Intuit, which gave him the resources to start farming organically.

Smith built his own barn, replete with housing for bats and barn owls and bluebirds. He refurbished a series of old tractors and built himself a precision seeder to sow vegetables.

He plans to expand the year-round farming operation to 20 acres.

And then Sebastopol's Bistro Bella Vita, the gloriously upscale reincarnation of funky Marty's Top of the Hill, went belly up and Smith bought it. He renamed it The French Garden and his daughter, Sorrel Smith, an artist living in Paris, came over to do some of the excellent artwork that graces the restaurant.

The floors are covered with floral-patterned rugs, the dining room is now separated from the bar and brasserie area by glass panels and doors, and a wine rack capable of holding more than 600 bottles fills the north wall.

Chef Stephane Roy is a native of La Rochelle in the Department of Charente-Maritime on the west coast of France, a region noted for its seafood. After stints at several restaurants in his home country, Roy worked in San Francisco and Mill Valley before becoming chef at Le Theatre, Smith and Marler's previous restaurant in Berkeley. That place closed July 30 in order for them to devote themselves to The French Garden.

Customers get to partake of the fulfillment of Smith's dream of being a farmer. As much as possible, the vegetables are seasonal, local, just-harvested and organic. They are often, in fact, the stars of the plates, able to upstage the meat or fish portion of the entrees.

When the fruits are in season, they include sweet and pie cherries, red and black currants, apples, peaches, plums, prune plums and pears - plus the honey his bees make from the blossoms. It is Smith's intention to have his farm supply just about all the produce for the restaurant.

The restaurant is determinedly French. The wine list consists mainly of French wines, although there are several pages of local wines, too. Each month the list features a different winery.

The current focus is on Trecini Cellars, which makes Dry Creek Valley and Russian River wines.

Among the many French bottles are the 2001 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Grenache Blanc for $89, a 2004 Bourgueil for $35, and a 2004 Domaine Gilles Barges Cote Rotie for $82. Strangely, the wine list has it "Domaine de Vieux Télégraphe" and "Cote de Rotie." The French Garden is no place for incorrect French, especially as the French are noted for jealously guarding their language.

Throughout the dinner, a salient quality of Chef Roy's cooking was his very light hand with salt. Many restaurants oversalt their food because they think diners prefer it, but I don't use much salt in my cooking at home and appreciate it when chefs show similar restraint. Once you get used to little or no salt in your food, the ability to taste it seems to shoot way up.

One example was the creamy Red Bell Pepper Soup ($6 **1/2) garnished with house-made crème fraiche, chives and thin slivers of raw red sweet pepper. The absence of salt made the sweet pepper flavor stand out. Similarly, the warm sliced baguette served before the meal was low-salt and was accompanied by sweet (unsalted) butter.

On the plate, the portions are very generous. Although the trend today is toward smaller servings, it's better to satisfy a large, hungry person and have a slender person leave food on the plate than to satisfy the slender person but leave the big eater hungry.

The presentations are very pretty. The prettiest was the Smoked Salmon appetizer ($10 ***). Three slices of salmon are rolled into cylinders and stand upright on a series of small, thin buckwheat blini. Each is topped with a dab of crème fraiche. Sliced d'Anjou pear accents the plate, along with a salad of greens given too much French dressing.

Service was professional and swift, even when the room was nearly full - and the room is large.

Soft, lovely greens from Smith's farm formed the underpinnings of the Beet Salad ($8 ***). Red and golden beet sticks glistened among the lightly dressed lettuces and endives, along with walnut halves, finely minced tomato, thin shavings of red onion, calendula petals, and a few deep purple violas.

A Puff Pastry with Lobster ($12 **1/2) consisted of a soggy piece of puff pastry halved and laden with lobster claw and tail meat and sautéed chanterelle mushrooms in an armoricaine sauce. Some say the sauce is named after the old name for Brittany, Armorique, and others believe it's a corruption of "American." (James Joyce punned on this dispute in "Finnegan's Wake.") It's made with butter and olive oil, leeks, onions, shallots, garlic, tomatoes and herbs and is delicious.

The Pan-Seared Scallops ($10 **) definitely had too much going on. The scallops were seared with a high flame that turned some of their edges hard and black, but the real problem was the clash between the saffron sauce and the port reduction sauce that swirled around a mound of mushy leeks and slices of grilled pear. "Liberté, Egalité, Simplicité" - isn't that the French motto?

The entrees got the food back on track. Eight slices of Duck Breast ($23 ***) were served in a fig sauce with red cabbage. Here the vegetables - little potatoes, carrots, beets, filet beans and tomato - really shone. A rich, dark gray shallot and bone marrow sauce enlivened a fine grilled New York Steak ($26 ***). Bits of marrow fat topped the meat and great french fries and garden veggies helped out. Three large chunks of snowy white, pan-roasted Alaskan Halibut ($19 ***) in a lobster sauce were a delight.

The savory persimmon-carrot flan that accompanied the fish might have been better if warm rather than cold. Battered and deep-fried zucchini slices were a treat, and there were - thankfully - more of the carrots, beets and filet beans.

Dinner finished with a magnificent Fraicheur les Citron aux Fruit Rouge ($7 ***1/2), a wedge of lemon mousse above a thin layer of jellied raspberry coulis topped with whipped cream decorated with an unopened bud of the "Cecile Brunner" rose and a mint sprig, and sitting in a pool of vanilla cream studded with jewel-like red raspberries. A wow of a dessert, and just one of 10 on the menu.

To sum up: A welcome showcase for farm-fresh, organic vegetables handled by a real French chef.