RESTAURANT REVIEW : A High Price Just to Be Disappointed

Il Gazebo in Glendale is the ambitious new offspring of Gennaro’s, that popular power eatery up the street.

While Gennaro’s is like a fancy dining room on a landlocked cruise ship, complete with padded walls and a professional crew of former Princess Line waiters, Il Gazebo, with its visible kitchen, wood-burning oven and designer pizza, tries for a younger, more casual atmosphere complete with a bit of time-proven trendiness (if such a thing exists). At Gennaro’s, the food is old-fashioned Italo-Continental fare, and the clientele is well-heeled. At Il Gazebo? Well, as the saying goes, in spite of a California pizza or two, apples don’t fall far from the tree.

Frankly, it’s hard to know what to make of this big, well-appointed new lad on the block.

Gazebos, or design elements thereof, form a series of semiprivate dining areas against the back wall. In the center of the room, a large fountain trickles under a skylight.

Flowers are on the walls, the chair seats and on plasticized chintz cloths that box each table--the resemblance of these stiff cloths to oilcloths on a picnic table is, I hope, unintentional. Despite its fussy decor, there’s something spacious and inviting and urban about Il Gazebo.

As it happens, Il Gazebo feels more like an old-fashioned fancy dinner house catering mostly to an older clientele. Some nights, at the dinner hour, there’s an accordion player. He performs the most sentimental of old standbys; during “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” there’s not a dry eye in the house.

The thing is, there aren’t many eyes in the house. Part of the reason for the low turnout is that Il Gazebo has been open only since October and many who might go there have not yet found it. On the other hand, Il Gazebo’s food, which is on the pricey side, is not yet very good. Except for the designer pizza, it’s standard old-line Italian fare: mozzarella marinara, red or white sauced pasta and veal, veal, veal.

The very best thing we tried is a chicken soup with vermicelli and spinach; it’s rich and nourishing. Otherwise, there are a lot of expensive disappointments. The special salads appear to be made, for the most part, in a document shredder.

The Fettucine alla Burina is, according to our waiter, probably a Roman dish, since Burinas are female Romans. To us here in Glendale, it appears a gooshy dish: overcooked pasta sauced with a near-tasteless mush of tomatoes and eggplant and topped with a scoop of cold ricotta straight from the carton.

A Gorgonzola and prosciutto pizza is tasty, but the crust--too thin, too ordinary--needs some work.

A halibut special is fine, but the portion seems meager. The osso buco is good, not great, and comes with a very cheesy risotto and limp vegetables. And so forth. A great deal more imagination and plain old-fashioned good cooking could do wonders for Il Gazebo.

As with many new restaurants, the large staff is enthusiastic, full of hope that this ambitious establishment might take wing and prosper. We’re greeted cordially, attended to promptly, we even get a wine bucket for our bottle of Pellegrino. Despite all the service people and their good intentions, our plates, when they came from the kitchen, were never delivered to the person who ordered them.

After dinner one night my friend and I wandered around the vast, empty room, checked out the semiprivate gazebos--they looked cozy, pretty, as if one could have a good, small party in there. The restaurant’s best-kept secret is its lovely bar. Step past the counter and you’re in a small, enchanting room with a real fire, attractive lithographs, comfortable tapestry chairs--a great place for nursing a cognac on a rainy night.

On our way out, we stopped for a moment at the white, scalloped fountain.

“Oh look,” I said. “People have been throwing money in.”

“Mmmm,” said my friend, “all the people who wished their food was better.”

Recommended dishes: chicken soup with vermicelli, $4.50; osso buco, $14.50.

Il Gazebo, 304 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. (818) 246-7775. Open for dinner from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. daily. Open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Full bar. Valet parking in rear of restaurant. MasterCard, Visa, American Express accepted. Dinner for two, food only $25-$60.