PERINO’S STILL IN PINK; AS FOR THE FOOD . . .

Perino’s, 4101 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 487-0000. Open for lunch Monday-Friday; for dinner Monday-Saturday. Valet parking. Full bar. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $60-$120.

First, a few candid comments, culled from companions while dining at Perino’s:

“If they go out of business, the bread slicer could probably get work as a brain surgeon.” (The signature toast is made of black bread sliced paper thin and topped with melted cheese. Be sure and eat a lot of it.)

“The service is so solicitous, I feel like I’m eating dinner with God.” (They are nice to you the first time you eat there. “Welcome back,” they cry joyfully when you return. On the third visit you get the Rockefeller treatment, and on the fourth they greet you as if you were their savior. I have a terrible fear that by the fifth visit they just might start treating you like a fool.)

“This pink makes everybody look 10 years younger.” (It is the very pinkest place I have ever eaten in. Dining in the warm glow of this room makes everybody look radiant. In fact, you tend to look at the meal through such rose-colored glasses that even the food looks remarkably fit.)

“What are they doing here? The management should have made them stay in the bar instead of coming in here and making everybody nervous.” ( They were the policemen who had come to investigate a robbery. A diner, waiting for the valet to fetch his car, was relieved of his wallet at gunpoint. The outcome? Good news. The cops were so quick they caught the thief as he made his getaway. The moral?: Bad news. Eating at Perino’s can be a lot more exciting than it used to be.)

Next, a short history of Perino’s. Started in 1932 by Alex Perino, a restaurateur of the old school, the place was a Los Angeles legend. Everybody ate there (Cole Porter, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bugsy Siegel). It was the sort of restaurant whose bartender bragged that ordinary ice ruined his martinis. He used French vermouth, English pot still gin, and ice that was delivered daily, directly to the bar so that it did not go through the kitchen and pick up any fishy flavors.

In 1949 Perino’s moved to its present location at the corner of Wilshire and Norton. It cost $200,000 to ready the building for the restaurant; in those days that was a terrific sum. The oval dining room was a Technicolored dream done in tones of rose. It looked like a powder puff, a boudoir, a place for Venus on the half shell. Crystal twinkled, chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, mirrors reflected everything.

In 1969, Perino sold the restaurant to Frank Esgro, who ran it until 1983. Then, in an attempt to expand, Esgro moved into lavish downtown quarters. By the end of 1984, Esgro claimed to have lost over $7.5 million, and in early ’85 the restaurant declared bankruptcy. While the downtown restaurants closed, the original stumbled on. Veteran waiters had to watch what was once the most expensive restaurant in Los Angeles serve a $12.50 buffet. “Unwashed people in jeans were eating here,” lamented one of them. A year ago the doors were finally padlocked.

But suddenly this spring things looked up. An Italian company came riding to the rescue. They lovingly restored the old restaurant, hired a lot of the old staff (including longtime chef Mike Olmeda) and flung open the doors. Could history repeat itself?

Now a few vignettes:

1--”I hope they make it this time,” said my first guest, an admiring longtime customer who was thrilled to see the old place back in business. He loved the sparkle of the room, approved the spiffy new upholstery, the shine on the silver, the flowers everywhere. The maitre ‘d greeted him like a brother returning from the war. It was all very touching.

But we were touched in a different way by what we ate, and appalled at the cost of the wines. (For example, a 1980 Badia e Coltibuono Chianti Riserva, which retails for $9, sells for $29 on the list.) When we asked the sommelier why the prices were so high he replied that the rent was $30,000 a month.

But another insult was yet to come. A couple of weeks later, after my First Impressions appeared in print, I got a letter from the restaurant’s publicist. “At the risk of insulting you . . . ,” it began, and then went on to say that the sommelier knew me well, had personally greeted each customer, and did not recall seeing me in the restaurant. “He wonders,” it went on, “if someone gave you incorrect information. . . .” ( I wonder who he thinks I am.)

2--On my next visit, the parking-lot holdup occurred. That was pretty exciting. But then, one of my guests was pretty excited when her $16 shrimp cocktail turned out to contain one whole shrimp and two cut-up shrimp, drowned in Russian dressing. Period. “This is an outrage!” she fumed.

It was she who noticed that the souffle potatoes that I had insisted on ordering cost $1.20 apiece. “There are 5 of them,” she noted, “for $6. Seems like a lot for potatoes--even for the world’s most elegant potato chips.”

She was also the one who noticed that although the Callaway Chardonnay is $20 on the wine list they sell it by the glass at $3.50. “I think I’ve found the only bargain here,” she said, ordering another glass.

3--On my third visit our very sweet captain tells us what fish they have for the day, and allows as how they can cook it any way we’d like. My guest says that she would like some simple scallops in a lemon wine sauce. “Beautiful,” he says. Half an hour later a waiter returns with scallops that are battered, sauteed and served in no sauce at all. “I guess I can have it any way I want it, so long as that happens to be the way the chef cooks it,” says my friend, pushing the unattractive plate away.

4--On my fourth visit the flashbulbs exploded. An elderly woman sat there wearing a pink blouse, a pink ribbon in her hat, and an enormous smile. “Whoever she is,” said my companion, “she is used to having her picture taken sitting right there. She knew exactly what to wear. Doesn’t it make you long for that other era?”

Yes. Perino’s is a thrilling flashback to a time when men wore tuxedoes, women wore boas, and service came with a smile. An evening here is like a trip down memory lane. The food? I was afraid you’d ask.

If you insist, I’ll tell you that my solution has been to eat a lot of cheese toast and then think pink.

The best dish I have tasted here was a special ravioli pinkly plumped out with radicchio. The sauce was a smooth flow of melted mascarpone and beneath it the little pockets of pasta were beautifully al dente and a joy to eat. (This was the only really contemporary dish I’ve ever been offered at Perino’s.)

Steak Diane isn’t particularly tasty, but it’s a lot of fun. The captain trundles out a copper chafing dish heated by no fewer than four Sterno burners. He heats up the butter, throws in shallots and parsley. He spreads mustard all over the thinly sliced steak and adds that to the pan. This is all a pretty good show, and if he remembers to burn off the liquor with which it is flamed (the time I ate it he didn’t), the dish could be quite good. As it was, it had a bitter alcoholic taste.

At lunchtime, there’s a seafood salad (which should probably be called a crab salad since that is the only visible creature from the sea), which comes with a bowl of bright pink Thousand Island dressing. It’s expensive, but it’s not bad. At night, some sage-topped very pink liver (that was how we ordered it) was extremely tasty. Broiled salmon was a bit overcooked, but otherwise unobjectionable.

The pinkest dessert is the strawberry mousse cake, which looks like every little girl’s birthday dream. It is a slightly tough cake, filled with fresh strawberries and topped with bright pink whipped cream. While the captain is standing there with the dessert cart, he will probably insist on giving you one of the sticky chocolate-covered profiteroles as well.

It makes you feel like a kid again. But, of course, that’s what Perino’s is all about.