RESTAURANT REVIEW : Marquis Encino’s ‘More-Is-More’ Approach Extends to the Price Tags

It’s comforting to be reminded that from time to time the more things change the more they actually do stay the same--well, sort of.

Amid the ever-rising tide of trendy cafes and cantinas on Encino’s Ventura Boulevard, the San Fernando Valley clone of stolid old Tracton’s once sat. It featured prime rib, lobster tails and crab legs purveyed in oversized, dark carved-wood Rancho Elizabethan dining halls, and it was closing its prepossessing doors for the last time. Would it be turned into yet another stylishly whitewashed hangout?

No, the old Tracton’s has been transformed (with merely a re-christening it seems) into a branch of the decade-old Marquis West, a popular Italian-American restaurant in Santa Monica. The Valley version perpetuates the tradition that equates luxurious dining with lavish surroundings, oversized portions and cooking at your table.

At the Marquis Encino, virtually every dish could easily serve two hungry people. The most striking example is the osso buco paesana . From a distance it looked like a small football on a leaf-covered lawn. Actually the enormous cut of meat surrounding the shank bone, though not particularly flavorful, was extremely tender and moist. Happily the marrow in the large bone, for some the best part of an osso buco , was as succulent as it could be. The green I had seen was the accompanying fettuccine, which was covered with a pleasing gratin of forest-flavored mushrooms and wine-enriched sauce. Both the osso buco and the fettuccine could have easily fed two hungry hikers.

The same could be said for the much livelier linguini alla putanesca . In keeping with the excessiveness of the kitchen, the capers were too big, too many and too overpowering. Even mounding most of the capers on the side of the plate didn’t solve the problem. The more-is-better approach paid off, however, with the rack of lamb; the eight chops were tender and done correctly to my order. The accompanying shallot sauce complemented them well.

There must be some mystique about seeing your food being prepared in restaurants: It’s been going on in one form or another for some time now. Nowadays it takes the form of the “open kitchen.” A generation ago it was dishes, often flaming, prepared table-side. The Marquis Encino opts for tradition--minus the flames. The ingredients for the wilted spinach salad’s warm dressing--olive oil, bacon, vinegar and sugar--are combined in a pan on a mobile cookstove. This allows the spinach to wilt before your very eyes as it takes on the warmth of the dressing that, in this instance, was too sweet. Though not heated, the Caesar salad dressing is also prepared table-side. Mine was obviously fresh but far too tart.

The food preparation ritual finished, you look up and notice that you are in a large beamed room with soaring copper fireplace hood and yard-wide, wrought-iron chandeliers. Cosseted in a spacious leather booth with soft piano music floating in from the cocktail lounge, you may feel that you’re in a resort hotel in a different place and time. Ordering from the “Old Tracton’s House Specialties” section of Marquis Encino’s menu will enhance this feeling. Prime rib so thick, so uniformly pink (if that’s what you ordered), so “buttery” that you can almost cut it with your fork; lobster tail so big the thought of the whole creature is terrifying. It was tasty though, alas, overcooked.

The old-fashioned attentive service by mature waiters (no “Hi, I’m Bruce; I’m going to be your waiter” here) is refreshing. So is the news that the chef will make anything you want provided that he has the ingredients. Also, if you can’t decide which sauce to have on your pasta--pedestrian pesto, marinara or piemontese (which oddly turned out to be Parmesan-based), you are welcome to a sauce boat of each. None of the politesse, however, could make up for a plate of very gummy gnocchi.

I also would avoid the tasteless grande calamari meuniere , the overcooked vegetables and the listless mozzarella marinara. The garlic bread--actually garlic rolls--is better, more garlicky, than most versions of this Italian-American favorite.

Desserts are uninteresting at best. An espresso mousse pie was light both in texture and in flavor, while a lemon mousse pie was uncomfortably resilient and had an unpleasant aftertaste.

In addition to some French and California wines, the Marquis Encino’s wine cellar offers representative bottlings from many of Italy’s wine-producing regions. Based on the Chiantis I tasted, reserve as well as regular bottling, I’d stick with the Californias. Beyond a fair selection in the $25 to $35 range, there is a tempting group of Mondavi Cabernet reserves $65 and up.

With a meal for two including wine and tip easily costing $130, it might pay to have your “resort” meal in an actual resort--even with gasoline prices as high as they are.

Recommended dishes: rack of lamb, $19.95; prime rib, $17.95.

Marquis Encino, 16705 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (818) 783-1320, (213) 872-2866. Open 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 5 to 11 p.m. Saturdays, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $70 to $80.