RESTAURANT REVIEW : Good Seafood Is the Hook at Delmonico’s Grille

Back when the Cajun craze was new, the Ritz Cafe opened in a blaze of searchlights and proceeded to move vast quantities of Louisiana food. The dishes may not always have been terribly authentic--for a while the Ritz had a lot of people in our time zone thinking gumbo was beef stew mixed with oysters--but it was always a pleasant, old-fashioned place to eat, particularly if you could figure how to get one of the cozy wooden booths.

Last spring, it dropped the Cajun routine altogether, put a mural of dancing dolphins on the wall and became Delmonico’s Seafood Grille. Certainly it was upholding its own tradition by again naming itself after a fancy turn-of-the-century eatery, but I was uneasy about the change, particularly when I saw a menu that looked like just another eclectic California list, complete with pastas.

In fact, it’s a remarkably good menu, and a number of the best things on it aren’t seafood at all. For instance, the veal ravioli in a powerhouse cream and meat glaze sauce exploding with porcini mushroom flavor. Or the Sicilian chicken, which gets a whole section of the menu to itself: chicken roasted with onions, peppercorns and bits of orange peel. On the side is a miniature version of pommes Anna ; think of it as two flat layers of extra-brown potato chips with garlic sandwiched in between.

Another dish that comes with that “potato pie” is the surprisingly good duck in peach brandy sauce. The skin is beautifully crisp, although scarcely brown at all, and the sauce is a strong reduction of duck juices with a subtle dash of peach and brandy flavoring. There are a couple of slices of fresh peach in it, presumably as a token of genuine peachiness.

To be sure, most of the menu is seafood, about 40 different types per day. There are lots of different treatments. Swordfish, for example, is heavily sprinkled with crushed peppercorns, sauteed and served in a butter sauce subtly flavored with chives. In keeping with the fashion of the day, some fish get silly garnishes that are essentially tropical-fruit salad, like the the one (mango, was it?) that comes with grilled ahi.

Shellfish is a specialty. There’s an oyster bar (“raw bar,” that is; a bit of New Orleans jargon hanging on), which accounts for most of the appetizers. They tend to be served plain, but there are also a few things such as mussels heaped with an oniony and very fresh salsa, which might, in fact, be a tiny bit too much for the mussels, depending on one’s feeling about mussels.

The salad featuring grilled prawns and remarkably creamy seared scallops is terrific, and the crab cakes are also very good, consisting of just about nothing but crab meat and green onions. They’re served with a mustardy beurre blanc sauce dashed with hot paprika, but there are only four of these little cakes for $13.95. In fact, everything is pretty impressive here except the limp and flavorless “crispy calamari.”

The desserts, in particular, are terrific. Delmonico’s claims that its creme brulee is the best in the country. Strong words, but this is extremely good creme brulee , very creamy with a paper-thin burnt sugar crust. The Key Lime pie has an aggressive lime flavor, and the obligatory chocoholic cake is extraordinarily chocolatey, positively gritty with chocolate. Tarte tatin deserves Delmonico’s name “caramel apple tarte,” the apples being soft and caramelized, tasting practically like dried apricots.

Delmonico’s is really better than the Ritz ever was. If only I knew how to get into one of those cozy booths.

Delmonico’s Seafood Grille, 9320 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles; (213) 550-7737. Open for lunch Monday through Friday, for dinner nightly. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $30-$60.