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MAY 8, 2008

Iva Lee’s
By Patrick Mott

It’s a shame the forces of evil have catapulted gas past the $4 mark and driven a stake into our food-fueled wanderlust, because the simple fact is that excellent O.C. restaurants are not all located in Central County.

If you’re on an expedition for the good stuff, you more than occasionally have to travel to one edge of the county map, even if you happen to live near the opposite edge. Do it anyway, because life’s short, and in the face of record gas prices, an election year and the smug tyranny of the fitness culture, we need the sort of comforting food that’s served up at places like Iva Lee’s.

Nearly at the southern-tag end of the county in San Clemente, it’s a cheerful outpost serving the kind of cuisine some might call comfort food, but they’d be wrong.

Let’s not confuse comforting food with comfort food. Comfort food, at least by my lights, is the sort of stuff that can be made with Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup – and just about any other ingredient. It’s deep-down good, warms the very soul, drives away distress, nourishes every square inch and makes you say, “Gee, that was good.”

Comforting food of the Iva Lee’s variety is deep-down good, warms the very soul, drives away distress, nourishes every square inch and makes you say, “Lord in heaven, this is sensational! Fetch all who are responsible immediately, so that I may rain grateful kisses upon them!”

Veteran O.C. Chef Antonio Ramos, together with co-owner Lisa Wagoner (and her husband, Eric), have cobbled together a menu firmly rooted in the South, but with California technique, presentation and sensibility.

Iva Lee was Lisa’s thoroughly Southern grandmother, and the inspiration for the dishes come from her. Much of the restaurant expertise comes from Lisa’s O.C. culinary pedigree: She opened the much-loved Ramos House Café in San Juan Capistrano in 1991.

Luxuriating in the casual New Orleans-style, deep-burgundy surroundings, my friend and I decided to start with the Deconstructed Muffalatta Antipasto Platter. In the Big Easy, the muffalatta sandwich originated more than a century ago at the Central Grocery. It’s a round loaf of crusty Italian bread, filled with provolone cheese, Genoa salami, cappicola, olive tapenade, pimentos, celery, garlic, onions, olive oil, and various herbs and spices. Iva Lee’s appetizer version separates out all the ingredients and lets you build as you see fit. The only change-out: pita bread triangles. It’s a zingy, spicy alternative to the traditional antipasto.

My friend sank happily into the Chicken Clemenceau – free-range chicken in veloute sauce, with mushrooms and peas on garlic mashed potatoes. The big chicken breast was plump and succulent, and the peas added just the right velvety texture. My friend thought it was one of the best chicken dishes she’d tasted in quite some time.

My Tennessee Meatloaf with brown-sugar bacon, mushroom gravy and garlic mashed potatoes may have been the ultimate in comforting food: carefully browned, not a bit dry, imaginatively plated with just the right amount of mushrooms and gravy.

Fill up the tank while gas is still $4 a gallon, because Iva Lee’s is worth the preparation.

Iva Lee’s, 555 N. El Camino Real, San Clemente, 949.361.2855, ivalees.com