Count on Lucques to get it right

AFTER the din of the restaurant last night, Lucques is heaven. No raucous birthday parties or pounding heavy-metal soundtrack. No standing around waiting for our table, whacked by passing monolithic handbags. I don't have to fight my way in or worry that the reservation desk has lost our reservation. I don't have to wonder whether the chef is in or not, because either way the food is consistently delightful and original.

I'm forever suggesting Lucques to anybody who loves to eat but also wants to spend time with friends or family over dinner. It's a great restaurant for entertaining and quiet enough to talk. The atmosphere is sophisticated and understated. Designer Barbara Barry's transformation of silent-film star Harold Lloyd's former carriage house into a smart, contemporary restaurant still holds up nine years later. I love the small, 10-seat bar backed with rows of wine bottles; the comfy upholstered booths; the soothing palette of taupe, cream and dark wood; and the square box lampshades that dangle overhead.

As soon as you sit down, thick slices of crusty bread arrive in a coiled reed banneton, the basket French bakers use to proof their dough. Beside it is a shallow tin of fragrant almonds toasted in olive oil and the green, torpedo- shaped Lucques olives that give the restaurant its name, along with good butter and crystals of fluffy fleur de sel.

What a pleasure. Everything about Lucques is just so, well, civilized.

I hadn't been back for more than a year when I stopped in recently -- more than once -- for a few thoroughly enjoyable meals. The cooking from owner-chef Suzanne Goin, author of the cookbook "Sunday Suppers at Lucques," has a strong point of view. It's Mediterranean filtered through a California sensibility, sensuous and direct.

Goin doesn't cook with an eye on fashion. She just cooks. And her food is very personal, very seasonal. She's a chef's chef, one much appreciated by her peers, who go to Lucques for her sophisticated comfort food.

Goin keeps it simple. It's such a relief to slide into one of Lucques' plush, curvy booths and be handed a single-page menu and discover that every dish sounds delicious.

Instead of scouring a long, verbose menu to find even one dish I want to order, here I could happily order anything listed.

At this time of year, you'll find chestnuts and persimmons and winter greens dotted throughout the menu. Flame grapes and walnuts, scallops in the shell, and the short ribs that are Goin's signature, along with the swell grilled club steak for two.