THE POT THICKENS AT THE MALIBU-CHARTHOUSE

If restaurants are the theater of the ‘80s, Tom Stoppard must be scripting the show.

Soviet defector Vitaly Yurchenko skipped out of Au Pied de Cochon, abandoning his CIA companion in mid-meal. Had he been eating pig’s feet, the specialty of the house? A reputed crime boss never even got to taste the hors d’oeuvres at a fine New York steak house about a month ago. He was murdered on the street just before he was to dine. But full-fledged restaurant dramas needn’t originate only in the East.

Former FBI agent Richard W. Miller, who described his affair with a Soviet woman as a “James Bond kind of fantasy,” attests to meeting her at the Charthouse restaurant in Malibu. They had a late-night date at a table with an ocean view. Since Miller’s testimony failed to mention the cuisine, I set out to fill in the blanks.

Let’s call my dining companion N. He arrived straight from martial-arts class. He was cranky. Perhaps some improvisation, fresh fish and fresh breeze would do.

No reservations taken over the phone, no need to invent a fictitious name. That turned out to mean a 20-minute wait in the cocktail lounge. Well, Miller and Comrade Ogorodnikova had waited there too. N. and I were in earshot of the other tables and in full view of the waves. He drank Coors. We whispered about oysters and shrimp.

The room was so dark I thought I should knock three times and say I was sent by Joe, but all I did was ask for a Perrier. It was midweek and crowded, the room lit by candles and amber glow. Too dark to really see other people. They became extras in our drama, like silhouettes.

Table finally ready. We ordered oysters, New York steak and swordfish and headed for the salad bar. James Bond could make a discreet salad from the fixings. N. stuck with “all you can eat.” The oysters were average--one actually had a tiny pearl. We joked about olive microphones in martinis and avoided the bread, which seemed to have been steamed. The swordfish turned out to be dense, without much taste, while the steak was proficiently workmanlike.

A few days later, on a Saturday night, there was an hour-and-45-minute wait. Since N. and I knew the ropes, we staked out a tiny table in the lounge and ordered from the cocktail menu instead of from the printed wooden planks in the dining room.

We chose teriyaki chicken sticks, sauteed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, steamed broccoli, the oyster-bar combination cold platter and the famous mud pie. N. thought the wine list minuscule and eclectic, with a few good choices eccentrically priced. We waited 40 minutes for our food, time enough for leisurely illicit talk, but too long for this hungry citizen that night. The table was so small, we were served one dish at a time. Shrimp cocktail was standard all-American fresh, with six plump shrimp for $6.25. The chicken on skewers was cool and rubbery. The mushrooms were fat and dark and served cold. Broccoli was properly done, still bright green.

I fancied most of the food on the combination plate: a slab of smoked albacore, steadfast cheddar cheese, two large shrimp and the reasonable oysters again. Oysters Rockefeller were plain awful; merely another way to give imperialism a bad name.

Poor Mr. Miller with his James Bond fantasies had been threatened with dismissal from the FBI for being overweight. Perhaps he cottoned to mud pies a little too much. N. and I split a single massive piece--coffee ice cream, whipped cream, salty chocolate wafer, chopped almonds and a vast amount of darkest fudge. With their super-high sugar content, they too are a sort of fantasy.

The Charthouse seems to be more about mood than food. So much for theatrical thrillers on the Coast.

The Charthouse-Malibu, 18412 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu (one mile north of Sunset Boulevard), (213) 454-9321. Hours: Monday-Thursday, 5-10 p.m.; Friday, 5-11 p.m.; Saturday (cocktail menu noon to closing), dinner 3-11 p.m.; Sunday brunch 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m., cocktail menu and dinner 2-10 p.m. Visa, American Express, Mastercard accepted. Valet parking. No reservations. Dinner for two (food only), $25-$50.