Looking for a Fine Kettle of Fish Soup : L.A. may not offer a great bouillabaisse, but the alternatives can be very good indeed

You can’t buy a good bouillabaisse in Los Angeles.

If you’ve a mind to, you can undoubtedly make a completely satisfactory version at home in your own kitchen, but weeks of tasting bouillabaisse in various restaurants failed to turn up a single one worthy of the name.

And there are plenty of dishes that go by the name. Some older restaurants have served bouillabaisse for years, and many newer restaurants, cashing in on the cachet of Mediterranean cuisine, have put it on their menus. But every time I’ve tried the dish in local restaurants, it has not been the supernal soup of Marseille.

There, waiters arrive at your table carrying a tray filled with various cooked fish that are only hours out of the water. These they bone, surround with a few pieces of potato and put in a bowl. Then a broth made of tomatoes, fish stock, olive oil and spices--the high note of saffron singing out over the rest--is added to the bowl. Finally the waiter places a bowl of croutons on the table, followed by another heaped with bright red rouille, and a third filled with grated cheese.

In Marseille, bouillabaisse in a good restaurant means hours of happy eating; in Los Angeles it generally means a rather sad interview with a tired stew filled with tough fish.

But although you may not find bouillabaisse worthy of the name in Los Angeles restaurants, you will find plenty of wonderful fish soups that do not even aspire to the name. Not one of the following soups calls itself a bouillabaisse-- but there’s not one that wouldn’t be cheered in Marseille.

Fish soup at Spago is a wonderful broth the exact color of a good bouillabaisse. Perfectly poached pieces of salmon, shrimp and delicate slices of scallop give you little bits to bite into. The well-toasted bread (this is important if it is not to get too soggy) adds further textural interest. There is even a great dollop of garlicky rouille spooned over the soup. It may not be bouillabaisse, but if there’s one soup I’ve eaten in a restaurant recently that makes you understand why people are so crazy over Provencal fish soup, this is it. Not big enough to be more than the introduction to a meal, the soup costs $8.50 a bowl; it’s worth it. Fish soup at Trattoria Angeli in West Los Angeles comes in a great big bowl; it’s meant to be an entire meal. And it is. There is a fine subtle broth, clear in flavor and texture, amply filled with mussels, shrimp, clams, and salmon. This soup also has a hunk of well-toasted bread floating about in it. This delicate soup is nothing like bouillabaisse, but seafood fans will find it extremely satisfying. It costs $15.50.

Fish soup at Le Dome on the Sunset Strip arrives in a tall, footed bowl. With its clear, fresh flavors, I think it’s just about the best thing on the menu. Like bouillabaisse, the soup comes with rouille, little toasts and grated cheese. It is certainly too small to make an entire meal of, but at $6.50 a bowl you might consider ordering a couple.

Fish soup at City Restaurant on La Brea is flavorful, but fairly thin. It has a definite Provencal zing--down to the dab of rouille that has been spooned into the middle. The last time I had it, the soup was filled with rice, vegetables and disconcerting slices of zucchini. One of those thin, crusty loaves that the French call ficelle was served on the side, adding to the Mediterranean appeal of the soup, which costs $4.50 a bowl.

Fish soup at DC 3 in Santa Monica comes in two styles. There is cioppino, the San Francisco version of bouillabaisse. But even better is the Chilean sea bass in a stunningly simple broth redolent of saffron. The fish itself--a big buttery chunk--has all the freshness of flavor that I associate with a true bouillabaisse. At $6 a bowl this is not a meal--but it certainly is a good beginning.

Fish soup at Pazzia on La Cienega is a real meal. You get a bowl filled with so much fish and so much bread to catch the juice on the bottom that there is barely any broth. The flavors are strong, mingling the heady perfume of parsley, tomatoes and garlic with that of lots of seafood. In addition to little squares of fish there are shrimp and whole fistfuls of Manila clams. The soup, not always on the menu, is $15.

Fish soup at Tribeca in Beverly Hills takes its name not from the Mediterranean but from the East Coast. They call it Montauk seafood stew--but with its heady broth of tomatoes, garlic, white wine and fennel, it tastes as if its origins had more to do with the Mediterranean than the Atlantic. This one, with its harvest of fish, clams and mussels, is a major meal. It costs $18.

Fish soup in New Orleans is called seafood gumbo--and it’s got a history as rich as that of bouillabaisse. With its base of onion, garlic, herbs and broth, the soup even bears a certain similarity to its Provencal cousin.

The seafood gumbo at Orleans in West Los Angeles, a zesty mixture of rice and roux with handfuls of shrimp, crawfish and fish thrown in for good measure, is among the most satisfying of soups. It costs $8.95 a bowl--and will prove far more satisfying than one of the pallid versions of bouillabaisse you’ll find around town.