PREZZO, WHERE THE SCENE IS THE THING

The first thing you notice about Prezzo, on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, is that you can’t find it. The artistic Prezzo signature, placed discreetly in the upper-right corner of its facade, is invisible to a stranger cruising by in a car--no match for Antonio’s Pizzeria next door, with its name printed in bold letters across an awning, in the windows and across the front of the building, a restaurant as different from its understated neighbor as, say, “The Honeymooners” from “Miami Vice.”

After you’ve found Prezzo’s door, hidden discreetly in an alcove, you discover, once inside, that it is in fact a “Miami Vice” kind of place--stark and open, all cool grays and violets with decorative slashes of magenta neon here and there, a constant undercurrent of rock music setting up a forward momentum to the proceedings, creating a not unpleasant tension.

The clientele--and the place is hopping--is “Miami Vice” fashionable: lots of padded shoulders and white linen, tanned skin, moussed hair. Everyone’s happy to be here, smiling, laughing, talking above the music. You feel it immediately. This is the place to be in the Valley, high-end casual, see and be seen, a place with the look and feel of a combination Prego, Trumps, City, Primi--as interpreted by the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

“How ya doin’?” says the bartender, serving up a somewhat stingy $3 cocktail along with a generous on-the-house plate of pasta salad--rigatoni and bow ties, chopped green beans and tomato, tiny shrimp, flecks of dried herbs in an oil-and-vinegar dressing. Is it good? Who knows? You’ve scarfed it up as manically as you and everyone else are talking.

In no time, you’re seated in the patio out back, a lovely, cool, quieter space. The staff could not be friendlier, healthier, younger, all dressed in a uniform of faded 501s, white shirt, white apron, white Reeboks, funky/artsy pastel ties. Your waiter--move over, Don Johnson--is gorgeous.

The food he brings is gorgeous, too. Big fat white scallops in a puree of red pepper sauce, accompanied by adorable little white turnips, green, green pea pods, a picture-perfect sprig of broccoli. The swordfish, a thick slice, is prettily crisscrossed by the grill and served with the same nice array of fresh vegetables. An incredibly generous handful of precious little buffala mozzarella balls comes with plenty of chopped basil and tomatoes, both fresh and sun-dried. White and pink shrimp are curled up in a light, creamy sauce that gives off a wonderful aroma of garlic. An appetizer of sauteed eggplant layered with mozzarella is bathed in a fresh-looking marinara sauce.

The eggplant is delicious, light, tastes as fresh as it looks. There is, however, a strange absence of taste to the rest of the food. Has the beat of the music, the gaiety of the crowd dulled your other senses? The swordfish is flat. The pretty little spheres of mozzarella have the consistency--and taste--of tender rubber balls. You can taste the sun-dried tomatoes, all right, but their flavor is too bitterly intense to be served whole and plain like this, with no other mollifying flavors. The shrimp are tough. So are the scallops. Tasteless, too. So’s the bread. So’s the butter.

Nowhere is this general problem of form over content so apparent as with the desserts. All sound wonderful, look beautiful--the tiramisu, the lemon chiffon cake. But it’s like some giant unseen vacuum cleaner has sucked out all the taste before things got to your table.

Just to make sure that your tastebuds aren’t on the blink, or that your waiter hasn’t caused some kind of delirium, you go back another night. Sure enough, there’s no pine-nut texture to your huge portion of pasta with pesto and smoked chicken. But your tastebuds work just fine, you find. You can taste good olive oil, nice fresh basil, wonderfully smoky smoked chicken.

Sitting at the next table, a man is eating alone. Well tanned, he wears a denim shirt unbuttoned down to here, eats a fat veal chop and reads a self-improvement pop-psych book. He insists you taste his veal chop; he’s ordered it well done. It’s not bad. In return, you give him the rest of the white cake/white cream mousse/kiwi fruit/white chocolate cake you’ve ordered which to you tastes like refrigerator-flavored air.

He lives at the top of the hill, he tells you. He goes into the city a lot, eats at Mirabelle and Prego. Or he comes here. He comes here often.

You ask if he likes the food. He shrugs. “I’m not a food person, except I love dessert,” he says, taking a big bite of the layer cake. “I really don’t care what I eat. I come here because I like the scene.”

Prezzo, 13625 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 905-8400. All major credit cards accepted. Full bar. Open Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-1:30 a.m.; Saturday, Sunday, 5 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Dinner for two (food only), $40-$70.