RESTAURANT REVIEW: DOWNEY’S : Hit and Miss : When the food is good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad, it’s still expensive.

When dinner in a Santa Barbara restaurant adds up to $50 to $60 a person, it seems you’ve got a right to expect an excellent meal--a meal at least as good as what you’d get at a quality restaurant in San Francisco or Los Angeles.

After all, at these prices, Downey’s is competing with California’s best restaurants. And for this kind of money--and with a reputation this big--you don’t want just some good dishes, you expect everything to be good.

But while chef John Downey certainly creates some of the best food in the South Coast region, I have found that his food is not consistently excellent.

Aha, you might say, maybe Downey’s compensates for this with superlative service. Not so. In fact, the service concept begins with the waiter reciting the entire one-page menu. Because this monologue is repeated throughout the room, the diner experiences a constant din from the combined sounds of classical background music and the chatter of waiters.

Perhaps these recitations explain why the waiters are a bit behind in providing certain services; one night, we waited 20 minutes for the wine list. The waiters are certainly gracious and helpful when they’re at your table. They just aren’t there often enough.

Sometimes you can overlook this. When the grilled duck is so consistently outstanding, service hardly matters. Downey’s duck is served simply, with crisply roasted new potatoes, onions and fresh thyme, or with a heavy coriander sauce and a side serving of mango-and-papaya chutney enhanced with a bit of cilantro, rice vinegar and lime.

Other dishes leave you feeling less forgiving. The roast beef filet can be a mushy, characterless piece of meat, saved only by an exotic side dish of Chinese kale cooked in sesame oil with a hint of soy. Another entree I’d avoid at Downey’s is grilled lamb loin. It seems to suffer from the same lack of character as the beef--but here, the roasted garlic and undercooked flageolets served on the side can’t rescue the dish.

I’ve had fish that was overcooked. On one visit, after the waiter swore that my fish would be gently treated, what I received was sea bass served with curled shrimp that had obviously spent too much time in the pan.

But an appetizer of gravad lax --with spiced cucumber vinaigrette on a bed of chopped bell peppers, onions and cilantro--was wonderful. Another--dark, meaty grilled squab in a chicory salad with garlic dressing--was outstanding. So was an appetizer of smoked shrimp and scallops served in a combination of chilies and lime juice. And you won’t want to miss the Santa Barbara deep-water mussels (harvested from offshore oil rigs) in a Dijon mustard-cream sauce.

Desserts are as good as the appetizers. Ice cream, made on the premises, is first-rate, particularly the fruit flavors. The chocolate Belgian marquise , which resembles a dark chocolate pudding, leaves a fine, bittersweet flavor on the tongue. Whipped cream-topped pastries come filled with ripe, freshly sliced peaches, the flavors held together by the mixture of peach juice and cognac in which the fruit has been marinated.

If you’re wise--or lucky--in your selections, all this can be worth the money.

* WHERE AND WHEN Downey’s, 1305 State St., Santa Barbara, (805) 966-5006. Dinner Tuesday-Sunday from 5:30 p.m. Major credit cards accepted. Reservations accepted. Beer and wine. Dinner for two, food only, $65-$80.