It's not that the kitchen is a novel place for them. For 14 years, the Staeblers have owned Café Marcella, the successful Southern French bistro in Los Gatos. It's the at home part of it that is the treat. The Staeblers, both natives of France who traveled to Los Gatos in 1978, spend up to seven days and evenings every week at their lively café on quiet Village Lane. They are always there for their customers who, after years of making Café Marcella their dining place--sometimes up to three times a week--consider the Staeblers family.

"Everybody knows each other here," Martine says, her conversation flavored by echoes of her hometown of Nice on the French Riviera. "It's the best part of having a restaurant. We know about their lives, they come in and we kiss and give each other a hug," she smiles. "They are my friends."

Everyone entering the homey café feels it--the warmth, the noisy energy. Even for the early arrivals, the door is unlatched and the guests are ushered in to a table with welcoming words. But it's also about the food--offered as specials and different every evening--the foie gras, two fresh fish and a variety of pates and soups.

"I try my best here in California to use the local ingredients I have to make it taste like what it is--southern French," says Michael Schibler, the executive chef who came to Café Marcella from San Jose's Emile restaurant nine months ago. He says the flavors are basic and obvious--mushroom soup tastes like mushroom, cauliflower tastes like cauliflower. "I've worked to bring continuity and consistency to what the Staeblers have worked hard to achieve for a long time," he said.

A native San Franciscan, reared and schooled in Missouri, Schibler, 44, has been in a kitchen since he was 12. He had a lengthy career in fine dining restaurants in Chicago and throughout California. But it was the 2 ¹/2 years that he spent in Zurich, Switzerland, where he did his apprenticeship after culinary school, that have had a lasting impact. "I had to prove to the Swiss that Americans aren't all unsophisticated and uneducated in culinary matters," he said with a grin. He proved himself by working essentially without pay and by learning the language. He was rewarded after six months with his training in butchery and sauces.

In a recent menu of dinner specials, Schibler features roasted eggplant and butternut squash soup (both $6), appetizers of Dungeness crab risotto ($16), lobster ravioli and jumbo prawns ($14), caprese salad ($14) and foie gras au torchon ($20). The entrees are seared rare ahi tuna and wild Calico King salmon ($26) and an Angus beef selection of grilled ribeye steak with sauteed broccolini, whipped golden potatoes with a wild mushroom demi-glace ($33). The vegetarian choice is a vegetable tower, rising three inches from the plate, consisting of yellow and green zucchini, portobellini, eggplant and tomato, with sauteed baby spinach and mozzarella di bufala (cheese made from buffalo milk) in a marinara sauce ($18). The bar stocks 700 foreign and local wines.

Luncheon guests are offered a prix-fixe, three-course meal for $19.95 (four courses are $24.95) along with a regular menu of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, pastas and specials.

Café Marcella is located at 368 Village Lane in Los Gatos. Lunches are served Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dinner is Tuesday through Sunday at 5 to 10 p.m. Closed Mondays except for private parties. Call 408.354.8006.