Froufrou and Good Food

“Perhaps you’re a closet Victorian,” said a friend of mine dryly to one of our dinner companions, observing with relish the frilly setting at the Secret Garden.

Moorpark is a farm town that would look at home in, say, Montana, and until recently the dining scene here has been limited mainly to steak joints and Mexican restaurants. The Secret Garden adds a charming new dimension.

It’s in a converted old ice cream shop, and the ornate decor suggests both rustic California and fin de siecle splendor--a combination you more often see up in the gold country. The main room has glittery crystal chandeliers, peach walls and luxurious French toile curtains on lattice windows. There are hardwood floors, shiny lacquered tables and a gorgeous wooden buffet, which serves as the room’s centerpiece. The mirror attached to it is framed in vines and flowers--a gentle image of times gone by.

You wouldn’t expect a restaurant like this to be casual or inexpensive, and it isn’t. Guests come dressed for dinner here, and so do the waiters, who sport black tuxedos and are uncommonly solicitous. Table settings are formal too. All have sterling service plates on paper doilies, plus tiny vases filled with heavily scented fresh gardenias.

The first food you encounter is a deliciously garlicky tapenade, a chunky version made from ripe black Mediterranean olives and fresh tomatoes. Hot sourdough rolls and slim lengths of cheese toast accompany it.

The menu is chalked onto a green blackboard. Because meals come with both soup and salad, there rarely are more than three appetizers listed. You might find golden brown Maryland crab cakes made from flaky back-fin crab meat--nice, but a rather small portion. The fried artichoke hearts are forgettable, despite a good crunchy breading. From the texture, I’d wager they are from a can or jar.

One evening, the kitchen started us off with a smoothly pureed red pepper and potato soup, which I found very pleasing. There are three salads to choose from, the best being a simple mixed green salad with raspberry vinaigrette. The frisee salad with bay shrimps and homemade blue cheese isn’t bad either. The only one I wouldn’t rush to order again is the Caesar. The dressing seemed pre-made, there was too much cheese and the greens were tired.

As for the entrees, I like the angel hair pasta with Santa Barbara prawns, though the giant prawns neither looked nor tasted like spot prawns and the $29 price tag seemed excessive for pasta. Seared chicken breast Oscar is one of those retro Continental dishes that seems excessively rich by late ‘90s standards. But the asparagus and crab meat with bearnaise sauce, as well as the meaty piece of chicken they came on top of, were all well-prepared.

The roasted Colorado lamb chops, though, struck me as a waste of perfectly good meat. The chops were moist and tender, but a very sweet wine and mushroom sauce almost completely obscured their flavor. The best entree might be broiled veal chop in mustard garlic sauce.

Desserts include creme bru^lee and a raspberry mousse cake--a pretty pink in color, but cloyingly sweet--served after being presented on a three-tiered tray.

BE THERE

The Secret Garden, 255 E. High St., Moorpark. Dinner 5:30-10 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday; brunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Valet parking. Beer and wine only. All major cards. Dinner for two, $70-$85. Suggested dishes: Maryland crab cakes, $9; angel hair pasta with Santa Barbara prawns, $29; broiled veal chop, $32. Call: (805) 552-9523.