NOUVELLE RUSSE : Diaghilev Offers Caviar, Vodkas, Blinis, Borscht, Great Service-- and Prices as High as the Urals

Bel Age has renamed itself after Serge de Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes in the ‘20s, perhaps to draw a distinction between the restaurant and the Bel Age Hotel in which it’s located. Fortunately, everything else is still pretty much as it was: tall flowers, ice-cold vodka and droves of servants in a room of heavy Russian splendor where you eat cholesterol by the bucket while mandolin music gently punctuates the hush. It’s also the place where the cheapest dinner costs as much as the most expensive dinner in nearly any Westside restaurant, and that’s without ordering caviar.

When you sit down, they still bring you a tiny buckwheat pancake topped with sour cream and excellent salmon caviar and try to tempt you into ordering one of their flavored vodkas. At the end of the meal, a little assortment of cookies and candies still comes out on a napkin with the restaurant’s name stenciled on it in powdered sugar.

In between, you can’t go wrong with the appetizers. The most expensive, oeufs de poule au caviar , is marvelous: whipped soft-boiled egg mixed with chives, replaced in eggshells (which are mounted on a sort of lawn of sprouts) and topped with sevruga caviar. You eat it in tiny bites with a tiny spoon.

But the least-expensive first course, borscht froid “cholodnik a la Polonaise , “ is also wonderful, not like any other borscht you’re likely to have tasted. It’s a refreshing confection of artichoke hearts and yellow beets in a cold saffrony broth with a couple of endive leaves poking up. Like all the soups, it comes with one tiny piroshki.

The zakuski palette de Leon Bakst, named for the Ballets Russes stage designer, includes samples of Diaghilev’s delicious golubtsy and pelmeni, which are also available by themselves. The golubets (you only get one on the zakuski plate) is a cabbage leaf stuffed to bursting with a sweet-sour mixture of beef, wild rice and corn kernels, floating on a little bit of yellow-tomato coulis. But with the zakuski , you get two pelmeni --Siberian ravioli with a crumbly veal-and-duck filling--that look decidedly Oriental but come in a saffron sauce. There will be some other odds and ends on the zakuski plate, perhaps a salad topped with shreds of fried leek, some sweet chunks of lobster and a spot of caviar and sour cream on a rose petal.

Among the entrees, kulibiaka de saumon proves Russian food isn’t always heavy: Salmon, just barely cooked, is surrounded by a rich sturgeon mousse in flaky pastry. A tangy red-wine sauce is deployed around it, along with some snappy semi-sour red cabbage. The shish kebab ( shashlik Caucasien ) is also impressive, made with venison and big, meaty wild mushrooms.

And canneton deux facons au miel definitely leans toward nouvelle cuisine: a duck breast, roasted medium-rare, and a leg (the best part) braised until the meat falls off the bone, in a sweet sauce of honey and Calvados. It’s pretty good, garnished with sweet-sour cabbage and freshly cooked potato chips.

The tournedos Igor Stravinsky--essentially the steak-with-green-peppercorns idea from the ‘70s with a dash of old Armenian brandy in the sauce--also nods toward nouvelle. Cotes de veau Gerald Arpino (named after the founder of the Joffrey Ballet) is actually sort of witty: The meat is cut from the veal chop and supported, pas de deux fashion, by the separated bones. There’s a little raspberry vinaigrette floating around here, plus a lot of big c e pe mushrooms and more fresh potato chips.

The desserts tend to be huge, rich and bland; in brief, authentically Russian. The sharlotka is a mild, milky concoction containing chunks of pear enclosed in strips of ladyfingers alternating with jam; it looks like a giant croquet ball. The peach mousse, served in a pie crust, is stingy with the peach flavoring. I’d take the lemon tart instead, tooth-rattlingly sweet though it is.

But there are some desserts so imposingly rich you’re likely to ignore your better judgment. The chocolate cake and the chocolate pistachio cake are mostly frosting, barely held up by wafer-thin layers of cake (the former also has a terrific layer of soft bitter chocolate for frosting). The best is a tiny, square hazelnut-chestnut cake that looks like a petit four with a lattice of sugar that suggests the decorations on a Russian Easter egg. The chestnuts add a spicy note rather than mere stodge.

I don’t know. It still seems like the old Bel Age, but the name change and this dalliance with nouvelle cuisine bother me. One more shot of that lime-flavored vodka, though, and I won’t care.

Suggested dishes: borscht froid “cholodnik a la Polonaise , “ $8; zakuski palette de Leon Bakst, $16; tartare de saumon et d’esturgeon au citron vert , $18; oeufs de poule au caviar , $28; kulibiaka de saumon , $26; canneton deux facons au miel , $30; lemon tart, $8.50; hazelnut-chestnut cake, $8.50.

Diaghilev at Bel Age Hotel, 1020 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood; (213) 854-1111. Open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday . Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $70-$140.

Stylist: Norman Stewart