RESTAURANTS : Tradition of the New

What you notice first at the Hotel Bel-Air is how good everything smells.

The moist, earthy air of the country captures you the minute you emerge from your car. Then, as you cross a little bridge and look down at the swans swimming lazily beneath it, there is a sudden, sharp smell of wood smoke. This grows progressively stronger as you walk across the lawn.

Slowly, the scent of mown grass and turned earth is added to the mix. Finally, near the lobby you are assailed by the smell of money--the lingering aroma of all the precious perfumes that have passed through the years. A man walks by in waves of after shave, which part as you near the dining room door. It opens, and promises of dinner come pouring out.

The second thing you notice at the Hotel Bel-Air is how comfortable you are.

You slouch into a chair so cozy that you barely realize it is there. The table is just the right height. The lighting is lovely, and the sound so well modulated that when the room is full you can’t hear a word of the conversation at the very next table, yet when it’s almost empty you can hear a carrot crunch four tables away.

Except for the maitre d’, who comes solicitously over from time to time to ask with a worried frown if everything is all right, the service is so unobtrusive as to be almost invisible.

“Everybody,” my Aunt Emily grandly says, “should eat at the Bel-Air at least once in his life.” She glances at the menu, grimaces a bit and says, “No matter who is doing the cooking. I see they have another new chef.”

Aunt Emily is the type who thinks restaurants would be better off if they just stuck to steak. “Everything is relaxing about this restaurant except the food,” she says severely. “They seem to get a new chef every six months.”

For years the menu managed a balancing act, striving to offer a little something to please everyone. But with each passing chef, the menu becomes more defined, more personal and less schizophrenic.

“There isn’t much left for me anymore,” Aunt Emily says, perusing the menu with pursed lips. It’s true that the menu sounds like a dictionary of new American foods. “Grilled free range breast of chicken with garlic potatoes and sundried tomato cream!” Aunt Emily says. “Whatever happened to plain old chicken? And I don’t think that I care to try this catfish salad if it really comes with tangerine vinaigrette.”

The menu created by executive chef George Morrone, who worked with Charles Palmer at New York’s River Cafe and Bradley Ogden at San Francisco’s Campton Place, may frighten the Aunt Emilys of the world, but hidden beneath all those fancy words are a number of unfrightening foods. And there is certainly plenty here to please the most ardent foodie.

Aunt Emily won’t even consider ordering the smoked chicken and foie gras ravioli, but it is her loss. Surprisingly, the foie gras has enough intensity to stand up to the smokiness of the chicken, and when put together into little pockets of ravioli the flavors do somersaults in your mouth. I’m convinced that if I could have secretly sneaked a little taste of the lobster relleno onto Aunt Emily’s plate she would have liked it. Stuffed with lobster, cheese and spices the chile is dipped in a light, cinnamon-flavored batter, deep-fried and served on a fresh-tasting tomatillo sauce.

But Aunt Emily did surprise me by agreeing to taste the carpaccio. “It’s just steak tartare that hasn’t been ground up yet,” she explains. To my even greater surprise she likes it. No wonder--this is the real thing--filet mignon that has been pounded thin instead of being frozen and sliced.

Aunt Emily likes the tortilla soup too, although she complains that it is too spicy. I think that the soup has a fine, bold flavor with strong strains of cumin, set off by the creaminess of bits of avocado and the crispness of fried tortilla strips.

But there is nothing bold about the ragout of spring vegetables with aioli. Aunt Emily had been put off by the name, but the dish turns out to be too tame even for her. A beautiful array of tiny steamed vegetables arrive arranged in a bowl with so little aioli that Aunt Emily tastes it and says, “This is nothing more than steamed salad.”

Aunt Emily deliberates long and hard over her entree order. “It all sounds so exotic,” she complains, rejecting Muscovy duck with creamy citrus polenta and roast sea scallops with fennel gratin.

Although I swear to her that she will not be able to tell that the loin of rabbit is not breast of chicken, Aunt Emily rejects rabbit with truffle pasta and creamed leeks. This is a pity, because I think she would have enjoyed the dish: black pasta tossed with a julienne of carrots, celery, truffles, then served with noisettes of white meat.

Aunt Emily finally decides to have lamb Wellington. “It sounds familiar,” she says. And it is: loin of lamb topped with blue cheese and then wrapped up in spinach and pastry. Served with crisp potatoes, it is a fine dish for a committed carnivore.

But Aunt Emily’s favorite dish is definitely the Dover sole with saffron-pimiento rice and shellfish. It would have pleased anybody: Adventurous eaters can accompany each bite with a bit of the rouille- covered toast that sits on the side. Eaten like this, it is a sort of dry bouillabaisse. But the fainthearted can easily eschew the toast, turning it into a sort of elegant paella. Either way it is delightful.

Other dishes just don’t work. A boneless veal chop is served sitting on a fricassee of veal mixed with uncomfortably crunchy black and white beans. A special tuna topped with olive paste has been cooked to a gray cardboard consistency. That tangerine duck comes with slices of the breast meat, a bit of confit, duck liver mousse, radicchio . . . there is confusion on the plate.

Desserts are never confusing to Aunt Emily: She likes them all. “Although,” she admits, “I’ve had better cheesecake than this one, and the tart is not an unqualified success.”

But the financier, a warm almond cake served with vanilla sauce and a little compote of peaches, meets with her complete approval.

As for the creme brulee, Aunt Emily pronounces it perfection. “This,” she says, “is a classic.”

Which is, in spite of a seemingly modern new menu, still the perfect word for the dining room at the Hotel Bel-Air.

Hotel Bel-Air, 701 Stone Canyon Road, Los Angeles. (213) 472-1211. Open daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner (brunch on weekends). Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $60-$100.

Recommended dishes: Tortilla soup, $5.50; carpaccio, $13; lobster relleno, $14; Dover sole with rice and shellfish, $28; creme brulee, $6.