RESTAURANT REVIEW : Malibu Set Now Has La Scala-by-the-Creek

Discreet, very discreet. Maybe the new La Scala is a little self-conscious about being in a shopping center, though a shopping center in Malibu is not just a shopping center. Anyway, there’s nothing on the street to give it away. Even in the parking lot there is only a discreet wrought-iron sign between two shops indicating the path to the restaurant.

But I can trust you with the secret. It’s around the back, behind the Wells Fargo.

The original La Scala in Beverly Hills is known for attracting Beautiful People. Malibu people are just as Beautiful, only more casual. Something about La Scala Malibu’s spaciousness and comfortable booths and the odd homeyness of having mismatched table lamps along with miniature orange trees really seems to agree with people around here. The place is always packed for dinner.

Lunch is even more casual, almost beachy. Around the margin of the lunch menu are reminders that they serve beer, wine, coffee and milk, and the dessert tirami su is helpfully spelled out ti-ra-mi-su. However, lunch is also the prettiest time to eat, when you have a view of the tree-lined bed of Malibu Creek. As somebody pointed out, it should be a particularly interesting view next time the creek floods. (La Scala does look water-tight.)

The food certainly attracts people in its own right: genuine Westside Italian stuff like carpaccio and penne arrabbiate way out here in Malibu. It’s marked by a curious schizophrenia, though. Some appetizers are of the exquisite, infinitesimal sort where you can estimate the price of each mouthful in the $2 range. For instance, the remarkably good smoked salmon in truffle sauce (an almost undetectably discreet sauce).

On the other hand, some items come in very generous portions, like the calamari salad stacked high with calamari, tomatoes and two colors of olives, all in a very garlicky dressing. And the bean soup is a meal: a big bowl of stewed white beans with some salt pork and virgin olive oil for flavoring.

The trademark of the menu on the entree side is a fascination with eggplant. There are two pasta dishes with eggplant, one an interesting tortelloni stuffed with eggplant and cheese in cream sauce (the eggplant tastes a little sweet and rather like some kind of squash). The other is rigatoni Malibu, where a cream sauce colored with tomato and dosed with Parmesan includes little well-cooked pieces of eggplant, which here taste almost meaty.

Altogether, you can almost feel you’re back in Beverly Hills. Tagliatelle with ham and peas, including mushrooms and nice sweet onions. Swordfish marinated in herbs and grilled. Roast chicken marinated in rosemary and garlic, the skin nice and brown. And at the end, rather cakey zuppa inglese with a thick whipped cream layer, and very good chocolate mousse, dense and a little bitter, very rich.

La Scala Malibu, 3874 Cross Creek Road, Malibu; (213) 456-1979. Open for lunch Monday through Friday, for dinner daily. Full bar. Parking lot. American Express, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $50-$90.