RESTAURANTS : CAFE BEIGNET SERVES UP THE ‘50S

Restaurants have been called the theater of the ‘80s. Although listening to Peggy Lee sing “Fever” on the jukebox and eating fresh beignets with cups of chicory-laced brew might not be what the Greeks meant by catharsis, Cafe Beignet “The Original” in Santa Monica, provides entertaining pleasure. It’s sure to be a favorite, a long-running hit.

Cafe Beignet is a bowling-alley coffee shop that would have been loved by the late Roland Barthes as much as by Rickie Lee Jones. Imagine a set out of “Grease” or Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” cafe: shiny chrome fixtures filled with rice-pudding parfaits; black leatherette swivel stools at the counter; neon radiating from the industrial clock; a jukebox with ‘50s prices (three plays for a quarter) and 25 years of the greatest of songs.

Cafe Beignet has all-American style. More important, it has basic good food. This is a place for interactive art. I ate thin slices of French toast with 100% pure maple syrup in the morning while listening to Sinatra croon “All the Way.” I was delighted by fine onion soup laced with sherry one stormy afternoon. At night I watched the silhouettes of bowlers on the alleys, used up all my quarters on Johnny Mathis, Ellington, Buddy Holly. After a number of visits, I found I’d become addicted to the place.

The menu is a kick to read. It’s filled with down-home slang. Prices are listed as so many “smackers,” “clams” or “bucks.” A print of a photo-realist painting of an old Horn & Hardart Automat shares the wall with an ordinary pre-pop art rendition of a frank and bun. Both menu and decor reflect the art and mythology of a vanishing American style. Happily, the emphasis is not on the manners but on the quality of the food. While the atmosphere is out of Archie Comics, the “chow” is a world away from greasy spoons. Food may be ordered without salt or butter. Side dishes may be substituted. There’s even a fresh vegetable dinner that comes either sauteed or steamed.

If restaurants are theaters, then their directors are the chefs. The best can concretize their dreams. Judy Binder, Cafe Beignet’s young owner-chef, has cooked at Cafe Alma and apprenticed with Wolfgang Puck at Ma Maison. She wanted to create a place of her own with solid, honest food. After a trip to the South, she decided to put her money where her mouth was, forgoing life with nouvelle cuisine. “I like real food,” she says.

The oyster fry plate contains sweet, fresh Pacific oysters slipped into a light coat of crispy cornmeal. The charred pork chops are thick, tender--first-rate fare. The spicy chicken is a large, juicy breast tasting like one you may have had over a campfire when you were a famished kid. The bacon in the BLT is actually meaty and lean. The giant bowl of oatmeal is laden with raisins and nuts. Even the decaffeinated coffee tastes rich and fine.

Cafe Beignet attempts to clean up all-American cuisine, not in any newfangled mode but with church-supper care. Still, in a couple of places they stay too close to the traditional luncheonette sins. While the “great onion rings” are indeed freshly made and light, the thin French fries are frozen. “Crispy slaw” is truly crisp, but much too sugary for my taste. The corn bread, that could have been gritty and fabulous, is just plain cakey and sweet. The green salad is ordinary roadside iceberg lettuce. The syrupy fruit accompanying some of the platters is the kind you’d find on hospital trays.

The waitresses, all dressed in shirts that say “Blanche” above the pocket, are very kind--but this kitchen is excruciatingly slow. They serve homemade salsa and hot, crunchy tortilla chips at dinner, and my 10-year-old friend went through two bowls of chips and two quarters on the jukebox before saying “It’s taking forever, “ which was true. These are merely minor problems at a cafe with such reasonable prices, but this kitchen can clearly rank with the best, so one wants it to be perfect.

The piece de resistance, the beignets, are described on the menu as “small, yummy, crusty-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside, mouthwatering morsels.” I couldn’t have done a better job of reporting on them myself. They look like puffy golden pillowcases, are served exceedingly hot with either powdered sugar or with ice cream and chocolate syrup. They go well with Elvis singing “Don’t Be Cruel.”

Cafe Beignet, 234 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, (213) 396-6976. Open Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Closing hours flexible. No credit cards. Easy parking in bowling alley lot. Full bar. Dinner for two: $15-$30 (food only). Breakfast for two: $6-$12; lunch for two: $10-$16.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: The owners have been announcing that the restaurant was about to open since before Thanksgiving, but a couple of weeks ago Le Bel Age (in the hotel at 1020 N. San Vicente Blvd., (213) 854-1111) finally threw open its etched-glass doors. Sometime between then and now the restaurant, originally to have been French, turned Russian.

This is not, let it be said, the Russia of folk tales and jolly peasants, but rather the Russia of the czars. The setting is luxurious, the musicians are live, and there are four kinds of caviar on the menu (from $5 to $39 an ounce).

Zakuskis include an opulent plate of various smoked fish and a collection of rather heavy Russian salads and pates. Entrees include a tasty if slightly tough duck stroganoff, fine fresh sea scallops, a quite correct coulibiac of salmon, all served in portions fit for a Russian winter. Entrees run from $16 to $22.