IT LOOKS GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT IN

Valentino, 3115 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, (213) 829-4313. Open for lunch on Friday, for dinner Monday-Saturday. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards. Dinner for two, food only, $60-120.

The first time I went to Valentino for lunch I stayed for dinner. It was one of those amazing meals when the food is so good you find yourself laughing and talking and falling in love with life. One of those meals that come back to you again and again in sharp little memories. It was the first time I had ever tasted Amarone, and even now I cannot drink that deep red bittersweet wine without recalling a deliciously long Los Angeles afternoon.

Valentino, you may remember, is that restaurant in Santa Monica where some people go and spend big bucks to eat incredibly sophisticated Italian food. It is that restaurant in the middle of nowhere in which other people would not be caught dead. For although the food may be wonderful, the room you have to consume it in has always looked like a slightly reupholstered tavern. That room is one of those black holes whose banquettes are covered in tufted leatherette and whose walls are hung with paintings so maudlin that they make the truly tasteful wince.

If you number yourself among the wincers, you’ll be happy to hear that Valentino is now ready to receive you. The restaurant has had its face lifted and its hair dyed; it has, in fact undergone complete cosmetic surgery. You’d hardly recognize the place. Owner Piero Selvaggio has just spent half a million dollars to make Valentino a restaurant where nobody could possibly be ashamed to be seen.

The main dining room, the one that once housed the paintings, is now bright and elegant, with the refined airs of an Italian palazzo. Great birds regally unfold their tails across upholstered high-backed chairs. At the end of the room are three chic little alcoves shielded by totally modern tapestries; they are sure to be highly coveted spots.

There used to be a wine room, a small dining room with all the allure of a cave. Here windows have been punched out of the walls and now the light comes flooding in from the new little patio just outside. The plants out there are echoed inside by a single bright green wall.

There is still one dark dining room, the most radical of the three. It is a spare, very modern looking room whose gray and pink walls are picked up by the Missoni fabric on the chairs. One entire wall is covered with a minimal mural filled with little gold and silver bits. These are tiny pieces of the old Valentino--splinters of chairs and tables that have been gilded with precious metal and preserved for posterity.

And the food? Better than ever. A recent lunch (the restaurant serves lunch only on Friday, but it is always a very special meal) began with fat little zucchini blossoms wrapped around Gorgonzola and then deep fried. It continued with tiny sandwiches of thinly sliced grilled bread topped with a single leaf of red lettuce and splendidly sour Sicilian olives; thick green olive oil slathered across the top added an entirely new flavor tone.

The meal went on and on in little courses. There was an extraordinary salad made of plump white Tuscan beans, sweet slivers of prosciutto, a few leaves of arugula, thin slices of porcini mushrooms and little green broccoli flowers. It was a perfect salad, a sort of cold cassoulet.

Then there were garganelli, hand-rolled horns of pasta topped with bottarga, the caviar of Italy. This was followed by a fabulous risotto made of marrow and lentils sitting on a single leaf of radicchio.

And there was more. Little tastes of liver, thinly sliced and mixed with onions. Lamb chops so tiny each was hardly more than a bite. Venison that had a truly wild and gamy flavor. With this sampler plate of meats came a single enormous porcini mushroom that had been grilled and set in the middle of the table. And finally, “just to finish off the red wine” (the enormous list just gets better and better) were slim shavings of aged parmesan cheese with just-toasted bread.

You don’t have to eat like this of course; many people throw caution (and their budgets) to the winds, put themselves in Selvaggio’s hands and wait for splendid surprises. Others prudently order their favorite dishes--fried calamari, osso bucco, homemade ravioli--off the menu. Either way the food has always been pure pleasure, but now those long, long lunches are served in a room that you actually like to look at.