West Shore Café: Foodies, Go West

by Kay Fahey

West Shore Café is a food lover's dream. Executive chef Bret Pafford, who pays painstaking attention to the balance of taste and texture in every morsel and the artistic presentation of each plate, makes everything on the premises, down to the light and tangy crème fraîche that graces his lobster bisque. He does everything except churn the butter (he uses European-style Plugrá sprinkled with Hawaiian red sea salt instead) and feed the geese for his delicately seared foie gras with pear granita and Armagnac currents.

Pafford insists on top-notch ingredients. The beef is the legendary Kobe breed, naturally lower in cholesterol but higher in marbling (and therefore tenderness) than other types. Ranked on a scale from 1 to 12—with most U.S. prime ranking about 4, and 12 designating the ultimate in excellence—Pafford's fi let mignon is cut only from Kobe beef rated 11 or 12 for a truly rare dining experience. For his signature salmon fi let atop truffl ed brussels sprouts and roasted sweet kuri squash, he uses fi sh imported from Scotland. For chicken, he buys Blue Foot, current darling of high-end chefs for its rich fl avor and kinship with the highly esteemed French poulet de Bresse. His passion for quality extends even to lettuce—Little Gem is his favorite—which he buys from farmers he befriended when he ran the well-regarded Pasta Moon in Half Moon Bay. "I love my lettuce," he says with a chuckle.

Pafford's passion for quality ingredients, including fresh fruits and vegetables, means the menu changes seasonally, as do the suggested wines. For each new dish, Pafford sits down with sommelier Steve Lamb to work out which wines will pair best.

This is one wine list that doesn't take itself too seriously, with selections like Pazzo's Call Me Crazy and Shoofly's Buzzcut. There's much to explore, from viognier and grenache blanc to a wide variety of pinot noir. You'll find a few familiar names—Louis Latour and Charles Krug—plus less familiar labels like Pio Cesare and Chivite.

Pafford's cooking is firmly rooted in European tradition. With two working parents, he began to cook for his siblings when he was 12 and started his professional career at age 14. While attending the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, he arranged unoffi cial apprenticeships at top restaurants in New York like Four Seasons, then went on to work at places such as Le Cirque 2000, furthering his grounding in French cuisine. "I don't do tropical fruits or Asian food," he says.

And customers love it. During summer months, West Shore Café's boat valets stay busy tending to patrons eager to dine on the spacious lakeside patio. Comfortable teak furniture and umbrellas provide seating al fresco for 120, while huge windows provide almost as fine a view for the 120 customers indoors.

With a gorgeous view and comfortably elegant surroundings, the café's dining room could be described as club room meets Tahoe lodge. The Oriental rugs, which carpet the room in shades of red, blue and earth tones, and the handsome bar, where specialties like the Lillet Cooler are mixed, do indeed recall a gentleman's club of bygone days. But the massive wood beams soaring across the high ceiling, vintage wooden oars adorning the walls and the lake and mountain views refl ected in beveled mirrors are pure Tahoe.

The visual feast carries over to each of Pafford's plates, a symphony of color and design. Take a recent amuse-bouche of Kobe beef carpaccio: Paper-thin slices of crimson beef are topped by three capers, a parsley leaf and a tiny, crisp Parmesan tuile. The meat is decadently rich, the capers and Parmesan a lively counterpoint, all sweetened with a touch of roasted pepper aioli. Another example is the molten chocolate souffl é cake, made with artisanal Gumaha chocolate. This not-toosweet, beautifully soft souffl é is fl anked by a small bowl of chocolate sauce and a scoop of impossibly light yet rich espresso sorbet. Combined, they are a masterpiece.

In fact, you could call West Shore Café a masterpiece. It has it all—the view, décor, fine food and wines, delivered by professional but friendly servers. We'll see you at the dock.

WEST SHORE CAFÉ

5160 West Lake Boulevard
Homewood, California
(530) 525-5200
www.westshorecafe.com
During summer, open daily for lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and dinner, 5:30 to 10:00 p.m.