Food with a view

Let’s cut right to the chase here. The food at the Bay View Restaurant at the Inn at the Tides in Bodega Bay is good, it’s well-made, it can rise to high quality, but it’s hotel food.

It seems the menu is put together by someone who decides that an inn hosting tourists from all over America should have a menu designed to please anyone who might stop in: a fish dish or two, and lasagna — everyone loves lasagna — and short ribs, and New York steak, and for sure, a filet mignon.

And yet, anyone who does stop in can’t help but be thrilled at the view through the picture windows. There’s the Tides Wharf down below, right on the edge of Bodega Bay. At night, the dark waters wriggle with red and green lights that guide fishing boats from the marina and back laden with their day’s catch of fruits de mer. Seagulls snuggle down for the night. A bobbing head of a sea lion can be seen not far from the wharf. The hulking ridge of Bodega Head frames the expanse of dark water. The air carries the scent of salt.

This is seriously romantic stuff. This calls for a restaurant worthy of the romance, shellfish aflame with brandy, crustaceans roasted in their own juices, fish and fennel fronds splayed on cedar planks. This calls for a menu that cries, “This is Bodega Bay, the far end of continental America, and here you can taste the essence of the salt sea while you see the passionate ocean heaving with the tides like the breathing of the earth itself.”

But we get lasagna. Lasagna ($18 ***½) that is really, really good lasagna, but nothing we couldn’t get in Austin, Milwaukee or Nashville at a good Italian restaurant. Lasagna so good, however, that it’s hard to keep from wolfing down this cabochon of pasta and cheese, béchamel and Bolognese sauces sprinkled with fresh herbs, redolent of tomatoes, luscious in the mouth. While the pasta isn’t house-made, it is frozen fresh and never dried out, so it has that melting quality.

So OK, the Bay View isn’t going to be the cutting-edge seafood restaurant of dream and legend. It is, however, a fine example of Sonoma County’s fixation on good food. Tourists may not find the strange and wonderful — the erstwhile Seaweed Cafe at the north end of town used to provide that — but they will find the old familiars very carefully executed.

The room pushes no envelopes, either, even if the view through the windows is extraordinarily pretty. It’s an old-fashioned hotel dining room, with a crackling fire in the fireplace, soft wall-to-wall carpeting, tables with white linens and bud vases with roses and baby’s breath, an open-beamed ceiling, and lots of potted green plants set around the walls and tables. A small full bar occupies a corner of the room, and at the dinner hour, a pianist plays nostalgic standards. When the pianist isn’t playing, you might hear Johnny Mathis singing, “It’s Not for Me to Say,” on the sound system, which was one of the selections on a recent evening that sums up the era that the dining room evokes.

The wine list carries on the something-for-everyone theme. Here are great Sonoma County wines like the 2005 A. Rafanelli Cabernet Sauvignon for $78 and the 2006 Merry Edwards Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir for $66. But there’s also a long list of Italian wines and even sparkling wines on the sweet side (something knowledgeable locals might eschew in favor of the dry brut style), such as Chandon’s “Riche” for $30 and a real Champagne, the Lanson “Ivory Label” Demi-Sec for $60. Yes, “demi-sec” is French for “half-dry,” but half-dry means sweet.

Service is impeccable, performed easily with a smile; restaurant manager Marco Gallazo makes sure the service lives up to traditional standards, as befits this very traditional room. There is also a winemaker dinner every month, with some of Wine Country’s star winemakers. Upcoming: Roederer Estate, Rafanelli, Ferrari-Carano, Chateau Montelena, Grgich Hills Cellars.

So what’s for dinner? Classics, of course, classically done. Start with French Onion Soup ($8.50 ***½). This is the real deal. The soup is dark, rich and thick, flavored with sherry and topped with a crouton and Gruyere cheese. The cheese is browned on top until it bubbles over the sides. Too many onion soups are watery and uninteresting. You can get lost in the intricacies of this one.

Dungeness Crab Cakes ($12 **) aren’t worth it unless the crab is fresh, not frozen. These were made just before crab season started, and so they were soggy and tired tasting. They’re served with avocado and shave fennel. Steamed Black Mussels ($10 **½) were nicely arrayed in their bowl and made with tomato, white wine, garlic and lemon juice and were quite good, even though they took a 3,000-mile plane ride from Prince Edward Island. Why import them when mussels are farmed right here and at Penn Cove up in Washington?

Roasted Baby Beets ($8 ***) made a scrumptious salad. Red and yellow beet dice glistened with vinaigrette. Balsamic vinegar was drizzled on the plate. A nasturtium flower, feta cheese and microgreens completed the salad.

Of course there’s classic fish on the menu. Pacific Halibut ($30 **½) was seared hard on the outside, but had the virtue of being flaky and tender on the inside. It perched on top of buttery mashed potatoes set in a sauce of corn kernels, broccolini and cherry tomatoes. A topping of mushrooms seemed an inappropriate way to finish a piece of fish, but there it was.

Liberty Duck Breast ($24 ***½) had the most delicious salty crust and the meat was pink, juicy and tender. It sat in a sweet, rich sauce made from our native Western huckleberries and was paired with peeled, grilled asparagus spears split in half and a Swiss-style rosti potato pancake with its crunchy crust. Braised Short Ribs ($20 ***) were the classic, meaty ribs cooked to falling-apart tenderness and coated in a glistening, deep, dark brown sauce. A classic gremolata — garlic, lemon zest and minced parsley — helped lift the heavy flavor.

Desserts were wonderful. Warm Chocolate Lava Cake ($6 ****) is a perfect little chocolate cake with a runny, warm chocolate interior. Pumpkin Panna Cotta ($6 ***) paired the custard with candied pepitas and a sweet fruit puree.

To sum up: Old-fashioned, classic hotel food expertly prepared to appeal to a broad range of tastes. Worth the trip.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.