Food can't live up to the prices or view at Smugglers Cove

I should have listened to my doctor. His office is in Mukilteo, where I had reservations to dine at Charles at Smugglers Cove. I asked if he'd ever been there. "Twice," he said. "The food's OK, but when prices are that high I'm skeptical. I mean, after all, it's only food. I'd go back, but only if someone else was paying."

I'd hoped to find that he was wrong. After all, chef/owner Claude Faure has a long track record in the area — his restaurant Chez Claude charmed le tout Edmonds in the 1970s and '80s. Since 1989, he and his wife, Janet, have been ensconced at Smugglers Cove.

And then there's location, location. The restaurant sits on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound, in a house built during Prohibition by a notorious local rumrunner and bootlegger, C.P. Richards, who installed a still in the sub-basement and dug a tunnel from there to what was then known as Smugglers Gulch.

As befits its history, Charles at Smugglers Cove is romantic in a moody, Bronte-ish sort of way. The interior has a comfortable, musty charm. The salmon-pink ceiling and peach walls soften the antique-accented downstairs dining room, which is graced with both a fireplace and a lovely view across the tree-shaded deck toward Whidbey Island.

We had reservations on the deck, or thought we did, one balmy August night, but Madame Faure whisked us upstairs to one of two equally well-appointed dining rooms. A wedding was occupying the whole first floor.

When I complained that we weren't told about the wedding when we booked the table two days ago, no apology was forthcoming. "You should have been told," she snapped, in a way that suggested we had somehow screwed up.

"Could we at least sit by the window then?" I asked when she headed for a table in the middle of the deserted room.

"Is it set for four? OK, then." The shrug was implied.

It wasn't an auspicious start to a meal that revealed a similar indifference on the part of the kitchen in its execution of a menu that, I suspect, hasn't changed much from the Chez Claude era (maybe even the de Gaulle era) — except for the prices, which are as steep as the trellised walkway that winds from the parking lot up to the front door.

Not that there's anything wrong with classic dishes like lobster bisque ($6.50), bouillabaisse ($25) and fillet of sole meuniere ($21), but these were among the evening's biggest disappointments.

The muddy bisque lacked lobster flavor, and a skin had formed on the top of it by the time it came to the table. Bouillabaisse, though well stocked with shellfish, was overcooked and short on other ingredients, notably broth, which tasted too strongly of anise and had a harsh alcohol edge. The sole, more codlike than soleful, was also overcooked.

If it's meuniere you want, try calamari belle meuniere ($10.50 dinner appetizer/$14.50 lunch entree), two thin, melt-in-your-mouth squid steaks blessed with a balanced blend of lemon, butter and capers.

My happiest encounter here involved veal sweetbreads forestiere ($24). The bite-size morsels of supple organ meat in a lush Madeira-laced brown sauce make for a stew as rich and voluptuous as Anna Nicole Smith, even though it's studded with mushrooms that probably came from a farm not the forest, cubic zirconia instead of diamonds.

Dinner entrees all come with the same trio of tasty, if unimaginative sides: scalloped potatoes au gratin, buttered carrots and nutmeg-kissed creamed spinach. But with top entree prices nudging $30, the chef needs to make more of an effort.

Seven prix-fixe entree options are available at lunch, four at dinner, among them king salmon richly sauced with béarnaise, and orange-glazed roasted duck nicely burnished and flavorful, if a little stringy.

The three-course package deal ($34 dinner/$19 lunch) includes a choice of soup or salad ($6.50 each à la carte) and dessert ($5.25/$6.50 à la carte). The cheese-crusted French onion soup is short on the onions, the Caesar a mite bland, and a superb vinaigrette drowns the green salad. But what detracts most from the value of the deal is a dessert tray as compelling as day-old doughnuts.

I finally made it onto the deck for lunch one sunny afternoon when the dining room was taken over by elegant white-haired ladies and a large party of co-workers bent on celebration. The colorful oilcloth-covered tables outside don't quite keep you from noticing the peeling paint, the leaky fountain and the cheap resin chairs that have seen a few too many seasons.

And the vista doesn't compensate for an overdose of wine in the baked mussels ($7.50), seafood fettucine ($11.50) that tastes like a vehicle for yesterday's leftovers, and chicken piccata ($11.50) that's on a par with something from your grocer's freezer case.

Even the service, so quietly gracious and correct at night, was lackadaisical in the light of day.

When the check came, I remembered what my doctor said. And I have to disagree. I won't go back, even if someone else is paying.

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com.