Clementine occupies the former site of Emil s Swiss Pastry on Ensley Avenue, just across the street from the Century City shopping mall. The interior is painted a cheerful pale orange with pale-green trim, colors extrapolated from a citrus tree clementines are, after all, California s sweetest mandarin orange. Imported olives sit in crocks. Baked goods are displayed by the coffee counter. Food is ordered at the register and devoured in an adjoining dining area, a pretty room with wainscoting and a witty collection of framed food brochures and coupons and photographs from the 30s and 40s.
Clementine features homemade seasonal food at pleasantly moderate prices.
The short breakfast menu offers poached eggs, biscuits and an excellent brand of preserves, Edon Spoonables. The dark-toasted granola has whole roasted almonds and a compelling, mild sweetness thanks to a generous scattering of chewy dried fruit. The breakfast sandwich is made with a biscuit so flaky and buttery, the poached egg and shaved country ham seem only to gild it. I especially liked a pancetta and leek quiche, with its buttery crust, soft custard and frank flavors. Her apricot bun is a soft mound of shiny, sweet yeast bread with a yolk-orange apricot compote center, a balance of sweetness and starch modeled on and improving upon the modest Midwestern kolache, a pastry that at first taste seems inestimably dull moist bread with a meager daub of jam but soon, incomprehensibly, is completely addictive.