If ever I opened a restaurant, it would be modeled after the Ramos House Café.

The San Juan Capistrano, Calif.-eatery is as romantic as it gets. It’s nestled in the heart of the city’s Spanish-influenced downtown area where kitschy shops share narrow roads with tiny, 19th-century homes built by early settlers whose future generations still live there today. This is the kind of place you bring your out-of-town guests to fall in love with California — if they haven’t already.

Being there is like traveling back in time when everything was made from scratch, from food to clothes – when nary a homeowner’s association existed to send these residents angry letters about unruly gardens or wrong choice of paint color. Here, beauty is achieved without conformity.

The Ramos House itself was built in 1881. Chef/owner/CIA grad John Humphreys lives there, cooking meals out of his home (in an updated commercial kitchen) to diners he serves on his covered patio. The bathroom is a converted outhouse, while herbs used are grown on site.

Humphreys’ food is of the southern variety, like the kind I imagine you’d eat on the wraparound porch of a Georgia plantation home. Buttermilk biscuits, citrus compound butters and jam are made by hand. Dishes are homey, and some are given a California twist that lightens the fare — like the macaroni and cheese with artichokes and lemon.

Beignets are pillowy, with textbook-perfect brunoise of apple (We should expect nothing less from a CIA grad). The crab hash, dotted with crispy bacon, scrambled eggs and sweet potato curls is my go-to. And if it’s on the menu, a slice of huckleberry coffee cake is a great way to start or end a meal. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for more.)

Portions are huge: A tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich could be a lunch by itself, but it’s actually one of a handful of first-course options in a three-course brunch served on Saturdays and Sundays. You could easily split courses and still be satisfied, but Humphreys “Ground Rules” strictly forbid it. A short list of these rules are printed on the menu, while another set is framed and placed by the host’s station. That one begins with “This is my home,” detailing what Humphreys would do to unruly guests and children (kick them out!). But these specifics just add to the homey experience — you know your mother had these house rules, too.

Ramos House Café, 31752 Los Rios St., San Juan Capistrano, Calif. 949-443-2992. www.ramoshouse.com

– Cynthia Furey

Side note: March Madness is a month-long challenge where I will post Monday through Friday for the entire month. Thank you for reading!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under At the table, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.