Barb Gonzalez / For The BulletinThe view from Scapolo’s, at Mt. Bachelor’s Pine Marten Lodge, extends across the Three Sisters Wilderness.

For many years now, Scapolo’s restaurant in Mt. Bachelor’s midmountain Pine Marten Lodge has served sunset dinners between July 4 and Labor Day. This year is no different, except that the format has changed from romantic sit-down meals to weekend buffets.

My suggestion: Come for the view, not for the food.

In all of Central Oregon, there simply is no better mealtime vista than this one, a blue-sky panorama that extends north and northwest across the Three Sisters Wilderness and Cascade Lakes Highway. Sitting at an elevation of 7,800 feet, you find yourself face-to-face with Broken Top and the South, Middle and North Sisters, their individual summits wrapped around serene lakes reflecting the pre-twilight sun.

You’ll want to come a little early to capture a window table, perhaps drawing the blind just enough to keep the sun out of your eyes as you gaze across alpine snowfields to the emerald meadows surrounding Sparks Lake.

The name “scapolo,” appropriately, is Italian for “bachelor.” Throughout the summer, the second-story restaurant serves a lunch menu similar to its ski-season offerings, with soups, salads and burgers along with hot sandwiches and pizzas prepared in a brick oven. As at many ski lodges, the interior is given more to function than ambiance.

Buffet menus

Three different buffet menus are served for this summer’s sunset dinners. Each of the three — Hawaiian this weekend, Tuscan next weekend and Aug. 26-28, and American (Aug. 19-21 and Sept. 2-4) — is priced at $49 per person, or $29 for youth 12 and under. That includes $10 for the 12-minute chairlift ride from the West Village, a service that’s shared with mountain bikers shuttling up the hill for the adventuresome ride down.

A boardwalk (one I don’t recall existing during ski season) made the short walk from the chair terminal to the adjacent Pine Marten Lodge an easy one. Opposite the statue of Mt. Bachelor founder Bill Healy pointing toward the mountaintop, double doors lead into the building; a staircase on the far wall, to the right, climbs one story to Scapolo’s.

From the moment we arrived at the hostess stand, service was steady and consistent. We were seated beside a window, given a wine and beer list along with a menu that listed the buffet items and immediately provided with glasses of ice water. Our pleasant server was quick to take our drink orders and direct us to the buffet tables, where we took plates for the first of our three all-you-can-eat courses.

Starting out

On this weekend, we had drawn the Tuscan menu, highlighting one of the many Italian regional cuisines. There were no pastas, however, and no antipasti platters; the presentation was closer to traditional northern Italian peasant food.

Plate One was for starters, including freshly baked olive bread, stems of red grapes, cubes of watermelon and cantaloupe and a toasty bruschetta with chopped tomatoes, basil and garlic.

A risotto bar was a disappointing substitute for noodles. The rice, cooked in a broth, was a little undercooked and not as creamy as I think a risotto should be. The “bar” was provided by three optional adds — wild mushrooms (my favorite), red bell pepper in a coulis and thin slices of Parmesan cheese.

Panzanella salad, truly a Tuscan dish, offered the only greens of the entire meal. Typically made only with chunks of soaked, stale bread and tomatoes, this one was tossed with bibb lettuce and dressed in olive oil and vinegar.

A creamy leek-and-potato soup had more leeks than thinly sliced red potatoes; it had good flavor but was thinner than I would have preferred. And a soup spoon, rather than a teaspoon, would have been helpful in the eating.

Mains and desserts

Plate Two was for entrees. The only vegetable course was a caprese skewer — a basil leaf wrapped around a ball of mozzarella that was sandwiched between two cherry tomatoes — although a meat-free option was also available to replace one of the three meat courses.

Valigette was the best of those, a beef roulade with an artichoke heart at its core. Cooked medium-rare, the steak was delicious, even though it cried out for a side of horseradish.

Chicken piccata, sauteed in butter with lemon and capers, was tender and tasty. Short ribs were braised in oil with diced carrots, onions and fennel; pancetta provided additional flavor, but the sparse amount of meat on the bones left me feeling a bit cheated.

I’m not normally a lover of sweets, but I found the quartet of desserts to be the best part of the buffet.

My companion was delighted with a slice of chocolate cake, featuring a filling of hazelnut and frangelica crème, and an amaretto chocolate mousse topped with slivered almonds.

I enjoyed a slice of three-layer tiramisu, the classic Italian ladyfinger dessert, and a parfait of zabaglione custard with fresh raspberries.

But the best dessert of all came as we departed, riding the chair back down the mountain was a blanket stretched across our legs to still the chill of twilight. The view here, as magnificent as it is in winter, is that much more spectacular under summer skies.

— John Gottberg Anderson can be reached at janderson@bendbulletin.com.