RESTAURANT REVIEW : Rubbing Elbows--Literally--at Trendy La Vecchia

At the latest see-and-be-seen designer pizza parlor, La Vecchia in Santa Monica, a plate of noodles and a slice of pizza requires not only appetite but stamina, hipness and a great love of one’s neighbors.

La Vecchia’s big open room is jam-packed with small tables and rife with Post-Modern architectural: mirrors jut off the green walls at a rakish slant; a long bar zigzags from the front of the room to the back. On shelves against mirrors are Italian grocery items: good olive oils, balsamic vinegars, pastas. Here at La Vecchia, the grocery sideline of old-style Italian restaurants is reduced to a design element, a vestigial flourish of what was once a necessity, like wings on a chicken.

At 7 o’clock on a weeknight, there are only a handful of customers. But my friend and I are seated smack in the center of the room--tables against the wall are reserved for parties of four or more.

Our waiter turns out to be prompt and enthusiastic. When I ask for my lamb chops to be cooked rare, the waiter warns me, “They are Italian in the kitchen; if you say rare, you’ll get them very rare.” I go for medium.

The menu is familiar to those who have kept abreast of the current Post-Modern hybridization of pizzas and pastas and appetizers. My friend, visiting from Illinois, needs some coaching. She’s never, for example, had crostini , which I describe to her as crusty little toasts with delectable toppings.

Insalata tricolore arrives first. It’s a perfect, lightly dressed blend of good bitter leafs: endive, radicchio and arugula. The crostini proves my definition grossly inaccurate: this soggy lump of melted cheese topped with a few shriveled mushrooms in no way looks--or tastes--like any crostini I’ve seen. It’s as if someone tried to reinvent pizza with only some of the ingredients. I console my friend with some of my perfectly good cannellini bean and pancetta soup.

The tables around us begin to fill up. La Vecchia is a casual place; not beach casual, more designer-casual. I see no shorts, for example, but lots of short skirts; no windblown hair, just carefully blow-dried muss.

The noise level rises. Our voices rise. A couple sits down next to us; they are strangers, but shortly we know more about them than we want. (I see, for example, that the man has shaved hastily, from the holidays on his chin.)

When our entrees arrive, the waiter asks my friend if we’d like fresh-ground pepper and cheese. She says, “Cheese, please.” When the waiter leaves to get it, I tell her: “Viv, for future reference, you might want to know that Parmesan usually doesn’t go with seafood pasta.” She cringes. “Don’t worry,” I say, “this waiter doesn’t look like the type who’d sneer at you.”

The waiter returns, dips a spoon over the cheese, and holds it poised over Viv’s plate. “Do you understand that if I put this cheese on your pasta,” he says, “it will dry up the seafood?”

Viv, in a very small, chastened voice, says, “Well, then, just a little, tiny bit please.”

That tiny bit of cheese must have had a near-violent power, for the shrimp and scallops in her seafood are, from the very first bite, as dry as pencil erasers. Viv mutters something. “What?” I say.

She leans forward, projected, “I promise I will never, ever ask for cheese on seafood again.”

“Ah. . . .” The room is almost full and the din is getting louder. I cut into one of three small lamb chops.

“Ha. . . ?” Viv says.

“What?” I say.

She frowns and repeats herself. “Ha wa wa-ah?” is all I make out.

She yells again. “How ... are ... your ... lamb chops? “

“Well done, “ I scream; indeed, they have not a trace of pink in them; they were so well-done, they were grainy. So much for the waiter’s advice.

We give up trying to have a conversation and eat in silence. For dessert, there is a cake made on the premises by the chef’s sister, a sweet but unremarkable multilayered affair of yellow and pink fillings and soggy meringues.

Return visits to La Vecchia proved to be near-replicas of that first visit. The same-sized crowd developed, as did the same deafening noise level. And the food was just as uneven. I would have loved the green bean and shrimp appetizer spiked with lemon and mint if the shrimp hadn’t been tasteless and dry--this time, I might add, without any help from Parmesan cheese. Braesaola alla Domenico , Italian air-dried beef with avocado and tomatoes, was fine. But a pizza with seven toppings tasted primarily of garlic.

La Vecchia, clearly, has great appeal; the lines of hardy souls waiting to be seated are proof of that. But it’s clearly not for everyone. Its steady customers would be naturally selected to include those with ears well-tempered by rock ‘n’ roll clubs, eyes trained to a sophisticated appreciation of Post-Modern design, and a palate quite generous in its qualitative judgments. In other words, at this restaurant, it’s survival of the hippest. And some of us just can’t make the grade; we’re too tired, too fussy and too crabby to yell our way through dinner.

La Vecchia, 2654 Main St., Santa Monica, (213) 399-7979. Open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday. Full bar. Dinner for two, food only, $30-$65.