DESIGNER FOOD BORDERING ON THE ABSTRACT

Bocca, 8001 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. (213) 653-3064. Open for lunch Monday-Saturday, for dinner daily. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $36-$60.

“If you give this place a good review,” said the Reluctant Gourmet halfway through our last dinner at Bocca, “it’s all over between us.”

Bocca is one of those restaurants that was designed for the camera and not for human beings; it just sits there waiting to have its picture taken. The people who patronize this photographic fantasy also look like they are waiting for the cameras to click. This must be deliberate, for the owners, Antonio Alesssi and Jeff Hamilton (the designer of Guess? Jeans for Men), say: “Bocca is not just a restaurant; it’s an eating experience.”

Unbeknownst to the management, I was the second customer at Bocca. It was Dec. 19, and the RG and I were on our way to Rondo, a restaurant across the street, when we noticed that the large pink place on Melrose finally had opened. A single diner was sitting in the otherwise empty room, and I wanted to join him. The RG wanted to stick to Rondo. We decided to flip a coin. Bocca won.

We walked into the bright, shiny restaurant, past the cool maitre d’, past the exhibition kitchen with its copper accents, past an army of waiters wearing enormous white shoes, to a table beneath a wall dripping with chic lines of pastel colors. “Designer food,” groaned the RG, picking up the menu. He looked longingly out the window and said, “It’s not too late to change our minds. . . .”

“The menu,” one of the owners has said, “offers a completely new statement in Los Angeles dining.” This statement, by executive chef Eugenio Martignano (formerly of La Terazza), makes the dishes sound like they were designed rather than cooked. And after we had eaten our way through a lot of food--spicy angel hair pasta with chile, blue crab, tomatoes and cilantro, pheasant marinated in cranberries, lamb chili with grilled polenta--we decided that most of it sounded better on the page than it tasted on the plate. But the RG was inclined to be charitable; he pointed out that it was their first night.

So back we went, three nights later. This time we had some friends in tow and the room was fairly full. And this time it took eons until anything resembling food was placed on our table. “A full hour,” said the RG, tapping his watch as the waiter said, once again, “It will be here in a minute.”

After 62 minutes the pizza finally came. We were hungry, we ate it, and then we wished we hadn’t; the thing was so covered with rosemary and sage that it tasted moldy. It was followed by equally awful appetizers: a chicken sausage, remarkably reminiscent of cardboard, covered with a sort of orange-mustard sauce and served with salsa. A wilted dandelion salad with rabbit livers, so salty that I found the dish inedible. And carpaccio, which arrived with the meat still frozen stiff and gray.

I could go on (the rest was worse), but I won’t. We decided that Bocca was still in the throes of opening angst, and I decided to give them some time to work out the kinks.

Exactly one month later I was back. What a transformation! The almost-empty restaurant had become packed with pretty people, all wearing incredible clothes and shouting at one another. One woman was wearing a skin-tight white leotard suit, her undulating body wrapped in multiple studded belts. The number of eyes that watched her progress across the room was no surprise, for in this place seeing is a lot easier than hearing. The most used word in the room is “ what ?”

The noise was awful, but it was instantly clear that the food had improved. The pizza’s crust had become crisp, the toppings sprightly. It seemed like an auspicious beginning.

But then I ordered a salad that sounds like it was designed for “Miami Vice.” It was pink and blue and salty. The pink was smoked salmon, the blue a goat cheese mousse, both perched on top of some very tough greens-- radicchio, curly endive, endive, a few crunchy bits of lettuce. The salt, not surprisingly, was pervasive, and trying to eat this was certainly an experience.

We were starting to get hoarse by the time the main courses came around, and it was extremely hard to hear, but I think my friend was trying to say that she didn’t much care for her steak. I certainly didn’t, although I liked the lovely tangle of young vegetables that shared its plate. My own redfish marinated in soy sauce was rather dull, but once again, the vegetables were a delight. We finished with a pretty little round of pumpkin cheesecake in a tangy ginger sauce, and I decided to see if I could persuade the RG to give Bocca one more try.

He agreed, but when he got to the door and heard the din, I had to hang onto his arm to keep him from bolting. And then, as the wait for a table lengthened--15 minutes, a half hour, an hour--he got grimmer and grimmer. Four times he declared his intention of finding the nearest hamburger stand.

Once seated the food came quickly. But the chicken sausages still were doing their imitation of cardboard. The wilted dandelion greens were very wilted, the rabbit livers very grainy and gray. The RG chose, for reasons known only to himself, a special salad. This was a concoction of grilled fish, green beans, corn, lettuce, cucumber sauce. . . .

“You call this food?” he growled, reaching across to devour the better part of my lamb chili, which I am happy to say, has turned into a delicious dish. It is spicy, rich, very satisfying, topped with polenta that’s a bit like a pudding. “It’s pretty good,” admitted the RG; from a man who’s been waiting an hour to eat, that’s quite a concession.

He was less charitable toward his swordfish, a piece of fish that mysteriously turned to dust in the mouth. One friend had Sonoma lamb; popping some crisp green snow peas into his mouth, he dismissed the meat as “Bar Mitzvah lamb.” Pheasant in cranberry juice was very, very dry, but the grilled radicchio that came with it was delicious.

Desserts were more appealing. Chocolate mousse wrapped in a ribbon of white chocolate was charming, and a basket of flaky pastry filled with crushed walnuts and tangerines made a thoroughly modern baklava.

Whoever cooks the vegetables is also doing a great job. The pasta is pretty good. The waiters are very pleasant. But many of the dishes are ill-conceived, and the noise level is horrendous.

“Listen,” said the RG, walking through the door for what he swears is the last time, “Anybody who goes to a restaurant for an experience instead of for food deserves whatever he gets.”