Perfectly Provencal

Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel has just launched a new restaurant, one that’s sure to draw more than just the hotel’s guests. With its warm, peach-toned walls and display of folk pottery from Provence, not to mention the expanse of ocean view before sunset, Lavande is not your typical hotel restaurant. Chef director Alain Giraud, who was Citrus’ longtime chef de cuisine before he left last Chef director Alain Giraud, has created a menu that evokes the sun-drenched region in the south of France where he grew up.

year to take this position, has created a Provencal-inspired menu for Lavande that evokes the sun-drenched region in the south of France where he grew up.

It’s a promising debut. Here’s one chef who’s not just paying lip service to the idea of Provencal cuisine. Giraud offers a fine fish soup that really tastes of the Mediterranean, accompanied by silver sauce boats of garlicky rouille and grated Gruyere, and the vegetable stew ratatouille is inspiration for a chilled terrine that layers eggplant and zucchini with tomato. The classic section of the menu offers a soul-satisfying daube of beef slow simmered with green and black olives. And, from the tasting menu, I fell in love with squab glazed with lavender honey.

This is sensual cooking, a meal to be savored at a leisurely pace in this lovely room. For dessert, order the vacherin, a snowy meringue strewn with berries. At the end of the evening, guests are given little sachets of lavender to carry home the scent of Provence--and Lavande.

BE THERE

Lavande, Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, 1700 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica. Open for dinner Monday through Saturday. Major credit cards accepted. Valet parking. Dinner appetizers $6 to $13; entrees $18 to $22; tasting menu $44 per person. (310) 576-3181.