Nautical or Nice

One of south Orange County’s most elegant dining spots is in a beautiful Cape Cod building overlooking Dana Point Harbor. Regatta Grill inherits the stunning room with floor-to-ceiling French windows and spacious outdoor deck that was Watercolors back when this was the restaurant of Dana Point Resort (now it’s Marriott Laguna Cliffs Resort).

The new nautical theme hasn’t much changed the decor. The dining room has been enhanced by nifty scale models of sailing vessels; colorful marine signal flags hang from the rafters. Booths have been redone in red, white, blue and yellow. On cool evenings, it’s lovely to sit under blue and white umbrellas out on the patio.

No matter where you sit, you can shut your eyes and, for a moment, imagine yourself sailing into harbor with Richard Henry Dana 160-odd years ago.

The restaurant is popular for Sunday brunch, deservedly so. For $21 you get a full spread: eggs Benedict, French toast, breakfast meats and lunch items (pasta, chicken, seafood, several good pastries), as well as juices and espresso bar. The smashing view doesn’t hurt.

Yet during dinner, seas can be a bit rough. Chef Jeff Littlefield, who worked with a fine young chef named Susan Weaver at the Four Seasons Manhattan, has lots of good ideas. Unfortunately, a restaurant this size needs more than a fine head chef; it needs a good line in the kitchen and crack waiters, two areas where Regatta slips.

Several dishes I sampled arrived downright soggy. A few others looked and tasted as if they’d spent too long under a heat lamp. In a restaurant where entrees start at $20, problems such as these should be avoidable.

One reliable starter is young spinach and frisee, a simple dish of greens tossed with feta cheese, sliced portabello mushroom, red onions and maybe a bit too much of a good tarragon vinaigrette. The traditional Caesar salad, by contrast, is a major disappointment. The dressing is wimpy, the lettuce soggy, with way too many commercial-tasting croutons.

I liked the idea of balsamic grilled quail when I saw it on the menu--quail in its own juices on a bed of white beans and unsmoked Italian bacon. But my bird had too much of those juices, meaning none of the crispness of grilled quail that I’d been anticipating.

Grilled asparagus also sounded great--the menu tantalized with the prospect of shallot marmalade, nuggets of foie gras and a spiced Cabernet vinaigrette. What I got was a big pile of greens and not many spears of asparagus, mixed with cloyingly sweet bits of foie gras and a distracting component that I could have sworn was spiced apples; for all I know, that was the shallot marmalade.

The main courses were more consistent than the appetizers, but there were glitches with them as well. One night, I ordered a special called orecchiette with roasted veal, advertised to be accompanied by squash blossoms, chanterelle mushrooms and a toasted garlic red wine broth. I didn’t much mind that the veal (large, overcooked chunks of loin) tasted more stewed than roasted. Or even the fact that the tiny ear-shaped pasta came in a thin, watery sauce.

But I didn’t like the fact that there were no squash blossoms. When I pointed this out to the waiter, he arranged to have a dish of the sauteed blossoms brought out in a side dish. That’s bogus--even in a less expensive restaurant, you’d expect them either to redo the dish or take it off the bill.

Still, there are some dishes to savor, dishes where the talented Littlefield gets to strut his stuff.

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Regatta Grill seafood stew doesn’t pretentiously call itself a bouillabaisse, but it definitely tastes like something you’d eat in the south of France. The stew has a delicious tomato fennel broth, croutons baked with the red pepper puree (rouille) that would usually be stirred into your bouillabaisse in Marseille--and a fish-tank load of lobster, clams, shrimp, whitefish, mussels and scallops.

The charcoal-grilled N.Y. steak, a perfectly fine piece of meat, comes with Yorkshire pudding. You can get a nice, hefty hunk of pan-seared halibut on a bed of lentils and caramelized onions, served with sugar snap peas. The penne rigate with roasted chicken isn’t bad either, though the pasta has too much sauce--bacon, onions, red wine and lots of cream--for my taste.

The restaurant has a small but appealing selection of desserts. My favorite is a maple creme bru^lee served with extra-crunchy pistachio biscotti--the biscotti go so well with the house espresso. A warm chocolate and raspberry tart is heavy on the raspberries. Another reliable choice would be the creamy blueberry cheesecake, which comes with a scoop of blueberry sorbet--a nice touch.

All in all, Regatta Grill is an attractive, appealing restaurant, even if the food and service make an occasional misstep. It’s just that when a restaurant charges top dollar, you should be able to count on more than a nice ocean view.

Regatta Grill is very expensive. Starters are $7 to $14. Main courses are $20 to $29.

BE THERE

Regatta Grill, Marriott’s Laguna Cliffs Resort, 25135 Park Lantern, Dana Point. (949) 661-5000. Sunday-Thursday, 6:30 a.m.-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday, 6:30 a.m.-11 p.m. All major cards.