Restaurants : WHEN NOT IN ROME : At Giorgio in Santa Monica, Good Food and Tyrant Waiters Keep Customers in Line

In the old days, which in L.A.-restaurant parlance means anything that happened more than 10 years ago, the French waiter was the diner’s nemesis. He was a dignified older man who stood there looking down his nose while you mispronounced the names of the dishes. He let you know that you had ordered all the wrong things. In those days, it was almost impossible to eat at a French restaurant and not go home feeling like a failure.

Things haven’t changed all that much. These days, however, it’s the Italian waiter who is making us miserable. Unlike the French waiter, the Italian waiter does not disapprove of you. He’s just bored. He is better looking and better dressed than you are. He is younger and thinner than you are. He makes you think that you ask too many questions, you don’t pronounce the names of the dishes correctly, you order all the wrong things, and you don’t know the proper way to eat pasta. He sneers when you insist on ordering cappuccino at the end of the meal. It is still hard to go home without feeling like a failure.

To make things worse, the people at the next table are always eating something that looks a lot better than what you are eating. But when you ask the waiter what it is, he does one of three things:

1. He pretends not to hear you.

2. He shakes his head, clicks his teeth and moves his uplifted finger rapidly from right to left.

3. He looks at you pityingly and says they’ve just run out of it.

My latest encounter with the too-cool-for-you Italian waiter was at Giorgio, a hip, tiny and enormously popular restaurant in Santa Monica Canyon. It’s so small and so crowded that it’s more like a New York restaurant--the sort that can’t avoid having a few bad tables. The worst is the one crowded up against a plywood column right in front of the bus boy’s station, and the maitre d’ will try to palm it off on you even when the restaurant isn’t full. Refuse it.

The first time I was stupid enough to accept it, three people, two of them a famous pair of married actors, sat down at the next table. (They star in the same TV show; she looks tall and elegant, he looks cuddly and rumpled.) I happen to know, through a friend of a friend of a friend, that he is a wonderful cook, so I was overjoyed to see him smile and wave at the chef in the open kitchen and then turn to his wife and companion and say, “Giorgio really has the touch; everything he cooks is delicious.” Although the stars never looked at a menu, food soon began to arrive at their table.

It looked wonderful. First there was some sort of soup that all three people at the table kept exclaiming over. Then came a pasta that looked plain and, from the pleasure on their faces, absolutely delicious. After that a huge platter was presented, covered with amazing-looking fried seafood; the most impressive part of the presentation included small whole fish and huge crab claws. They finished with tiny cups of espresso and no dessert. As they got up to leave, they were wearing the smug expression of the truly satiated.

We were given menus. And a list of specials by a very blase waiter. He told us about polenta; when I had the audacity to ask what was on the polenta, he told me what polenta was. When I asked about the special surprise $30 menu, he said it was a surprise. When I asked if the special fish, branzino, was imported or local, he ignored the question.

So I was a little surprised to find that the special soup we ordered--clam and white bean--turned out to be the same soup the stars had been eating at the next table. It was wonderful soup served in oblong bowls. The broth was clear, fragrant and filled with lots of little clams. The white beans in the soup were just firm enough to give you something to bite into but not soft enough to make it thick. It was served with hearty slices of toasted bread to dip into the soup, and eating it was a satisfying experience. (I should mention that the same soup, on another occasion, was very salty.)

The salads, all of which have titles like Insalata Forte and Insalata Favorita, were delicious. The grilled-vegetable special, on the other hand, was not. Well-grilled vegetables are spectacular; eggplant, in particular, has a way of turning crusty on the outside while the interior becomes as soft as custard. Giorgio’s vegetables, on the other hand, had been thrown onto a too-cool grill, and as a result they were tepid and limp, infused with the metallic taste of the grill.

The polenta special was very good; so was the tomato-and-porcini sauce with which it was served. The same sauce, however, was served on the ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta, and it was not a happy combination. The sauce fought the ravioli; there was too much happening on the plate.

Entrees--grilled branzino, some overcooked salmon, sliced veal--were served with spinach and roasted potatoes that had been sitting so long they had become damp. Desserts were about what you’d expect--a good tiramisu, ricotta cheesecake and something called torta della nonna (grandmother’s cake), which was buttery and crumbly, sort of like a giant cookie.

The thing about restaurants like this one is that even when you have a meal that’s pretty good, you know--you know-- that other people are eating better than you are. And so you keep going back, anticipating the best and usually not getting it.

On return visits, I’ve ordered the mixed grill of fish, always with that big seafood platter in mind. What I’ve gotten, however, has been a small, overcrowded plate filled with a variety of overcooked seafood. I’ve had very good risotto and some fine pasta dishes, but every once in a while there has been an extraordinary dish that proves what the kitchen can do.

Consider, for example, the mezze lune. What was set before me was a fine broth filled with the most delicate half-moons of pasta wrapped around a light veal filling. It was as good a version of the dish as I’ve ever had. Afterward, I had branzino-- perfectly grilled--and this time served with perfect little roasted potatoes and wonderful spinach. A cup of cappuccino and a few bites of that wonderful torta della nonna , and I was a happy woman.

Even if the waiter did sneer when I ordered the cappuccino. “In Italy we only drink it in the morning,” he said.

I couldn’t help myself. “We’re not in Italy,” I replied.

Giorgio Ristorante, 114 W. Channel Road, Santa Monica ; (213) 459-8988. Open nightly for dinner. Beer and wine. Valet parking. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $40-$80.