There is a point during dinner at Dave Beran’s Santa Monica restaurant when the attention of the entire room shifts to a table in front of the kitchen. Beran makes a show of breaking down a duck and stuffing the carcass into a medieval-looking contraption that compresses the cartilage, bone and tissue into a pink goo that’s then transformed into a luxurious gravy. The chef is charismatic and fluid in his movements while he chats up a captivated audience, some of whom have actually ordered the duck and some who have not. Pasjoli, like many restaurants around town, is finding a groove that feels right for its particular place in time. Beran recently switched the dining room’s a la carte menu to two prix fixe options, one centering around the duck and another that reads like a greatest-hits list for the five-year-old French bistro. Longtime favorites such as the foie brioche can still be ordered for the table. The new format straddles the line between destination dining and the kind of neighborhood restaurant everybody wants to have down the street. There’s a $65, three-course menu for diners who can make it in before 6 p.m. And at the bar, you can order thick burgers dripping with marrow aioli and what I strongly believe is the best grilled cheese sandwich in the known universe. — J.H.

2732 MAIN ST., SANTA MONICA, (424) 330-0020 l PASJOLI.COM