Country-style cooking with a Persian touch

EL SEGUNDO might not be a place you’d expect to discover a jewel of a restaurant like Farm Stand.

The South Bay town just below LAX has as its best-known landmarks the Scattergood power plant and the smokestacks of the Chevron oil refinery.

But drive down the city’s quaint, gentrified Main Street, with its fire station and bevy of independently owned shops, and you’re in small-town America. Farm Stand’s tongue-in-cheek, faux-barn facade and its offering of “Urban Country Food” seem exotic for this sleepy beach enclave.

The restaurant’s bright-red exterior frames a huge front wall of uninterrupted plate-glass windows. Inside, there’s an airy, loft-style dining room with a wide-open feel that’s heightened by the view of a patio area seen through another glass wall. Vivid photo blowups of vegetables and fruits mounted on unframed canvases emphasize the contemporary attitude.

Prices are satisfyingly modest. Yet before you open the menu, certain details indicate the owners’ attention to quality: the sound of the coffee grinder, the sight of a cruet of extra-virgin olive oil on every table and the carefully selected beer list of microbrew favorites.

The wine list, too, goes beyond the cursory selection such a casual place might offer, listing a dozen or so each of whites and reds.

Farm Stand’s freshness theme might suggest a vegetarian or health-food spot, but the menu describes the food as “favorite gourmet family recipes -- originating from French, Italian, American and other Mediterranean countrysides.”

Those favorite family recipes don’t come from ordinary families though. Husband-and-wife proprietors Alex Mosani and Sophie Gabriel hail from restaurant-owning clans and have, since their teens, spent long hours working alongside their parents. Gabriel’s father, chef of Manhattan Beach perennial Cafe Pierre, also owns Zazou, a more modern pan-Mediterranean restaurant in Redondo Beach.

Before Mosani helped out at his mother’s high-end catering company and was a consultant for local Persian restaurants, he learned his trade in the 1970s under chef Jamsheid Vafaie, a.k.a. “Goldfinger,” legendary in the Persian community as the chef who cooked for the shah of Iran in Beverly Hills.

The duo seems to have filled a niche that this community was lacking. It’s a something-for-everyone place where well-made burgers, meatloaf, pumpkin ravioli and Persian-style ground beef kebabs, koobideh, coexist happily. Portions are generous.

Mosani’s talent as a chef in control of his ingredients shows up even in such seemingly mundane items as the Farm Stand combination appetizer dips. In his hummus, tiny flecks of garbanzo bean contribute intense flavor and give it the slightly rustic, countrified style the restaurant embraces.

Thick, creamy yogurt provides the base for a cucumber-fresh dill dip, while the dip of roasted eggplant with unctuous caramelized onion (a must-try) is a garlicky puree studded with firm chunks of the deeply roasted vegetable. The $11 assortment, by the way, is sufficient for four.

Although some of Mosani’s Persian dishes are presented in a crossover style, they stay true to their archetypes. Lemon-marinated game-hen kebab comes not with the usual mound of basmati rice but with a huge tower of fresh-cut, skinny Parmesan fries and a serving of roasted vegetables.

Baked chicken in walnut-pomegranate puree is classic fesenjan. But in its graceful porcelain bowl alongside traditional fluffy basmati rice, it seems somehow au courant.

Meals can be rich, almost decadent. You can, for example, start with a sparkling wine and an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms with bacon and herbs in a pecan coriander sauce or perhaps the baked brie and roasted garlic served with sauteed green apples and toasted pecans. Light eaters will find choices such as grilled salmon over dressed greens.

Many dishes that seem like old standards have a clever -- and delicious -- twist.

The worth-a-splurge naked burger is somewhat Frenchified with its light glaze of Roquefort cream studded with green peppercorns. A dish called Nonna Rina’s lasagna has meaty filling wedged between layers of bechamel-splashed noodles with a touch of Parmesan, a sophisticated version of the church-supper favorite.

Meat loaf served with nicely chunky mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables is just like Mama would make if she were French. For lamb lovers, Mosani’s whole braised shank is fall-from-the-bone tender in a lean garlic-tomato sauce.

House-made desserts include a pear cheesecake with a “crust” layer of meticulously diced and poached pears and a sour cream topping.

And as familiar as it may be, a soft-centered chocolate cake this good -- enough to share among four -- is always welcome.

Farm Stand is a difficult restaurant to categorize, yet it’s part of a budding trend of a new generation of stylish, individually owned restaurants.

They’re popping up in many neighborhoods as savvy, often quite young owners draw on their multiethnic backgrounds to bring us increasingly sophisticated everyday choices.

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Farm Stand

Location: 422 Main St., El Segundo; (310) 640-3276.

Price: Appetizers and soups, $3 to $11 (for the combination); sandwiches, pastas and entrees, $7 to $19; desserts, $5 to $6.50.

Best dishes: Walnut-pomegranate baked chicken, home-style lamb shank, Nonna Rina’s lasagna, naked burger, stuffed mushrooms.

Details: Open Tuesday through Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Beer and wine. Major credit cards. Free lot parking.