RESTAURANTS : ONE GRAND HOTEL : It Has Fancy Architecture, Plush Prices, Great Service-- and Occasionally Fine Food

Nothing’s more Pasadena than having your wedding reception at the Huntington Hotel, unless it’s having breakfast there on Saturdays. The tradition must date back to the hotel’s opening in 1906--by Los Angeles standards, practically before the Flood. Six years ago, though, Pasa-dena was stunned when the Huntington, together with all 23 acres of its landscaped grounds, was closed for earthquake-safety reasons.

Now the Huntington has reopened as the Ritz-Carlton Huntington, entirely rebuilt in the plush, expansive original style. Modern architects will despise all the old-fashioned frippery of the coffered ceilings, crown moldings and oil paintings. Lots of Pasadenans, however, still think frippery is a perfect background for wedding receptions.

Needless to say, a grand hotel like this houses several restaurants, the grandest being the Georgian Dining Room: a vast, antique chamber, somewhere between a basketball court and an airplane hangar in size, beneath an impressively high vaulted ceiling trimmed with gold. It has Old Pasadena written all over it, from the china display cabinets to the restored art nouveau stained-glass windows.

The Ritz-Carlton chain favors high-end French continental cuisine for its big-ticket restaurants, rich and elaborate food that shouts, “Here’s the special occasion you ordered.” Example: a terrine of wild mushrooms and prosciutto where the predominant flavor is an intense reduction of duck juices. The menu doesn’t even bother to mention the foie gras that comes on the side, any more than it mentions the shreds of black truffle on another appetizer: home-smoked salmon served with warm potatoes.

Of course, you could simply have the artichoke-and- foie gras marble instead--slabs of foie gras mounted on slabs of artichoke heart. Or a cylinder of surprisingly forceful goat cheese mixed with pistachios and wrapped with positively Germanic neatness in arugula leaves.

The entrees mainly aim to save one the trouble of a lot of chewing. The veal medallions (in a mild sauce somewhat daringly flavored with lemon grass and accompanied by tiny, vividly red stuffed sweet peppers) are very tender, and Maine lobster--sauteed in Cabernet, though it’s a little hard to tell--comes with a sweet, garlicky mound of something white and soft in the middle of the plate. Curiously, the caramelized duck leg is incredibly chewy.

Nearly all the desserts are based on chocolate. “Chocolate fall leaves” consists of sheets of chocolate forming an abstract pattern reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House, with layers of bittersweet-chocolate mousse between them, accompanied by a pool of orange sauce with little guppies of chocolate in it plus a scoop of cinnamon ice cream. There’s also a small but potent chocolate souffle served with a roasted pear-and-pistachio sauce and a sort of charlotte called chocolate entremets : raspberries surrounded by a thin sheet of layered chocolate and vanilla sponge cake, topped by a milk-chocolate mousse.

The bill is staggering at the Georgian Dining Room, but you do get all sorts of extras: little daily changing snacks before the meal, little pastries after it and a room so quiet you know you’re nowhere near the Westside.

The Ritz-Carlton Huntington considers the Cafe informal, and by the standards of the Georgian Room, it is. Instead of waiters in stiff tuxes, it has well-scrubbed young women in summery-print dresses. One of them merrily confided to us which items on the Fitness Menu (gazpacho, chicken breast with mustard) tasted the least dreary. Of course, the Cafe fronts on the hotel’s Olympic-size swimming pool, but even the terrace seating nearest the pool is elegant, set in a sort of natural garden bowl. Still, instead of a harp, the Cafe has a mere piano.

The food isn’t as rich as at the Georgian Room, but it has some of the same neatnik approach. The eggplant-and-zucchini terrine is composed of four layers inside a paper-thin eggplant shell: onions, sweet peppers, carrot threads and an artichoke heart, all firmly bound with gelatin. Several items take a neat cylindrical form, such as the peppered tuna-pastrami appetizer, a tower of layered eggplant caviar and somewhat ham-like cured tuna with salmon eggs on top.

But the Cafe actually has avant-garde tendencies. The sweet-onion tart, loaded with duck and a rich meat reduction aggressively flavored with rosemary, could be served in any California Cuisine place. On the other hand, escargot-and-herbed-goat-cheese strudel is on the bland side, especially its accompanying tomato coulis --savory but somewhat in the Campbell’s tomato-soup manner.

The big veal dish on the entree list is an excellent deboned, grilled rib-eye steak with a crust of mustard and herbs, served on a bed of wild mushrooms with a brawny meat glaze. Lobster gets cooked with Riesling and cream--a little poetic and not distractingly sweet. Two quasi-Moroccan lamb chops come in a meaty sauce surprisingly flavored with cumin and accompanied by somewhat mushy couscous mixed with mushrooms and raisins.

None of this is really inventive enough, though, to prepare you for the rabbit loin. The rabbit meat gets slathered with veal pate and wrapped in caul fat, a delicate pork tissue used as a sausage casing in Europe but inexplicably ignored in this country, making it in effect a rich rabbit sausage (this also solves the dryness problem that usually afflicts rabbit). Served in a red-wine meat reduction with morel mushrooms, pancetta and pearl onions, it makes a sort of powerfully flavored mammalian coq au vin.

The Cafe’s neatest dessert is the tiramisu : a perfect cylinder of thin layers of mascarpone and coffee-soaked pastry. You can also get a standard-issue warm apple tart with macadamia ice cream or a chocolate crepe filled with bananas and chocolate mousse--not as exciting as it sounds, but it does come with good chocolate ice cream.

It’s reassuring to know this old-fashioned sort of luxury is still around. The only disturbing note is how many wedding receptions are going on in this hotel. Did every couple in Pasadena hold off getting married the last six years?

The Georgian Dining Room, Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel, 1401 S. Oak Knoll Ave., Pasadena; (818) 568-3900. Open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday. Full bar. All major credit cards accepted. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $75-$114.

The Cafe, Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel, 1401 S. Oak Knoll Ave . , Pasadena; (818) 568-3900. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Full bar. All major credit cards accepted. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $58-$78.

Food stylist: Norman Stewart