REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK : Once-Ubiquitous Sununu in Doghouse, Out of Sight : Controversy: The chief of staff is minding the store--at the hotel.

From Beijing to Buenos Aires, wherever President Bush has jetted, at his side--like Don Quixote’s Sancho Panza, only even better traveled--has been a short, stocky man.

In frame after frame, he showed up in the pictures as the President stepped from Air Force One, walked along the red carpets and sat down with his foreign hosts in plush meeting rooms.

Who is that man, and where is he today?

He’s White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, and, yes, he’s here in London. You just wouldn’t know it from watching George Bush. For the first time in memory, Sununu is nowhere to be seen.

“He’s just not at the table,” said a White House official, asked to explain Sununu’s low-key presence in London.

Ever since he was chastised over his role as the government’s best-known frequent flyer for his use of Air Force jets and government cars--and then corporate aircraft--for personal and political travel, Sununu has been advised to lower his profile. For a time, he seemed not to heed the suggestions.

Bush’s trip to Europe this week is his first overseas venture since Sununu flew himself into the President’s doghouse. And the message has apparently taken hold.

While Bush has moved about London--from meetings with the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan in Lancaster House on the edge of Green Park, to dinners at 10 Downing St. and Buckingham Palace--Sununu has remained quietly in the staff quarters in the Churchill Hotel.

What is he doing?

He’s minding the store, White House officials say, keeping track of such things as the Administration’s skirmishes with Congress over the nominations of Robert M. Gates to head the CIA and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

As for the photo opportunities that were once his stock in trade, they are still taking place, but without the sight of Sununu working his way to Bush’s side just as the strobe lights flashed.

“This time he had the good sense not to do it,” a White House official said.

Sununu isn’t the only one doing a kind of disappearing act.

When it comes to mingling with the press, so, too, has George Bush--at least compared to his usual behavior on such trips. So have the six other heads of government taking part in the summit.

This has, naturally, prompted complaints from many of the 3,000-plus journalists from the world’s news media, who would prefer much greater access to any of the G-7 leaders.

The press has been kept far away not only from the meetings themselves, but from motorcades, lunches and dinners attended by the heads of government, their foreign ministers and finance ministers.

At a rare impromptu meeting outside Winfield House, the U.S. ambassador’s sumptuous residence in Regent’s Park, Bush was approached by Helen Thomas, dean of the White House press corps, who complained that the press arrangements by the host, Prime Minister John Major, had made it difficult to cover the proceedings.

The President drew chuckles when he quipped, “Well, that’s your problem, not Major’s.”

Then the President turned to First Lady Barbara Bush and, still in a jocular mood, asked: “Would you like to say a few words for Helen? She wants somebody to answer her questions about anything.”

The good-natured First Lady responded: “I’ll be out later, Helen.”

The President then pointed to his wife and said:

“Here’s our hostess. Helen Thomas would like to get your view of the balance of payments.”

While Barbara Bush won plaudits for her engaging sense of humor, the British press seems to have awarded the summit wives’ fashion prize to Mila Mulroney, wife of the Canadian prime minister.

Earlier summit meetings saw a fiercely fought style competition between Nancy Reagan and Raisa Gorbachev--without a clear winner in the eyes of the world press.

But the 1991 laurels are being handed to the tall, attractive Canadian First Lady. She has turned up in eye-catching ensembles of all-white and pale yellow, equipped with Chanel accessories and large sunglasses parked on her coiffure--reminiscent of Jacqueline Kennedy when she was First Lady.

But Mila Mulroney’s reputation as an international power dresser has not always been appreciated back home. Some Canadians have criticized her attention to expensive clothes and home furnishings--and have compared her unfavorably to the also attractive but controversial Margaret Trudeau, now the ex-wife of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

The fancy meals laid on by the British hosts, presumably to impress the visitors with English cuisine, came under criticism from local nutritionists.

The first three menus released by the Foreign Office read like culinary delights, but dietitians attacked them as being laden with cholesterol and fat.

Amanda Ursell of the British Dietetic Assn. described the three- and four-course meals as “too high in fat and too low in fiber.”

Embarrassingly, the menus were published only a week after the Department of Health printed dietary guidelines encouraging Britons to adopt healthier eating habits.

The main objection seemed to be that the meat courses-- tournedos of Aberdeen Angus beef with Perigourdine sauce and roast fillet of Suffolk pork--were served inside a rich pastry, and the potatoes were loaded with heavy sauces.

“It is a pity the lean beef was put in a pastry,” said Tom Sanders, a lecturer in nutrition at London University’s King’s College. “I suppose it was to keep the Europeans happy. But it is really just an upper-class sausage roll. The Dauphine potatoes are the least nutritional form of spud, far too creamy.”

Looking over the menus, Sanders said: “These meals are equal to at least two-thirds of the recommended daily caloric intake in one go. Once you add the inevitable wine, the bread rolls and the butter that the vegetables are bound to be swimming in, these people should not be eating again that day.

“There is no vegetarian alternative, no poultry and not enough fiber. Exercise should be avoided because, after a meal like that; they would most likely keel over.”

The reports prepared by the pools of journalists that cover the President’s motorcades for their colleagues occasionally contain bits of news, reports on street crowds or comments from Bush as he emerges from his limousine.

But the pickings were so thin on a Bush motorcade from Winfield House to Lancaster House on Tuesday that the pool correspondent reported the events in one line:

“In the words of G. H. W. Bush, ‘Zip, zero, zed. ‘ “