REX APPEAL : At This Quiet, Richly Elegant Art Deco Palace, Diners Are Treated Like Royalty

I’ll be arriving on Thursday,” wrote my formidable Aunt Emily. “Please see that you aren’t late meeting my plane.” I’ve tried to introduce my aunt to the telephone, but she much prefers the written word. You can’t talk back.

“No, no, no, that will never do,” was what she said when I arrived. “You don’t actually expect me to ride in that ?” That was my car. “At my age,” Aunt Emily said, “I can’t be expected to bend down to get in. You’ll have to rent a larger car.”

“Now,” she said, once we had parked my car, rented a new one and managed to squeeze her considerable luggage into its trunk, “where are we going to eat dinner tonight? I’ve been so looking forward to a meal with you.”

I thought Rex might do for Aunt Emily. The gorgeous Art Deco room has always felt more like a church than a restaurant to me, a temple to pretentious gastronomy where, for more than a decade, small portions have been doled out for huge amounts of money. But it has a certain decorum that I thought Aunt Emily would appreciate.

She sailed through the Lalique doors and into the dining room. I noticed, with relief, that acres of space separated the marble tables, that voices were kept to a reverent hush. From somewhere in the rafters, the sound of a piano floated down. Aunt Emily nodded approvingly. The maitre d’ led us to a table.

“Oh no,” frowned Aunt Emily, as he held out a chair, “this won’t do. I must have one of those with arms.” She pointed imperiously to an occupied chair. The maitre d’ didn’t flinch. “Of course,” he said, leading us to another table. “Not this one,” said Aunt Emily. “It’s too close to the door. I’d like that one over there.” She pointed. The fact that it was not vacant did not seem to faze her. “If you’ll just give me a few moments, madam,” said the maitre d’, propelling her gently toward the elevator, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Aunt Emily went happily enough to the bar on the mezzanine. “Quite a lovely room,” she said, plunking herself into an overstuffed chair and looking around approvingly. She tapped her fingers against her glass of tomato juice in time to the music. When we got downstairs, Aunt Emily’s desire had somehow been fulfilled--the table she wanted was waiting. She did not seem to think this remarkable. “I’m very hungry” was all she said.

Clearly, the restaurant has had ample experience with the Aunt Emily ilk; a waiter with a huge basket of bread materialized almost immediately. Water was poured. Aunt Emily was pleased to note that it came from a bottle instead of the tap. Butter was brought in a little silver urn. Other than the flowers, which she thought inappropriately large, Aunt Emily found little to complain about. “Such a civilized restaurant,” she said, handing the flowers to a passing waiter. “Why aren’t there more like this?”

I thought three courses would be sufficient; not Aunt Emily. She was here for the whole show. She chose the special tasting dinner--six courses for $70. “I can never turn down foie gras ,” she said. So while Aunt Emily ate a slice of rare, grilled duck liver and polished off the baby-greens salad in an intensely fruity olive oil, I had tiny turnovers of puff pastry filled with cheese, sitting in a pool of tomato coulis . “Quite, quite delicious,” said Aunt Emily, downing two of my three turnovers.

Next she had ravioli filled with langoustines. “These are much too elegant to be called ravioli,” she said, admiring the half-moons, “and much too delicious.” Although the ravioli were impressive, it was the fettuccine on my plate that I most admired. Whole-wheat pasta was topped with a ragu of duck and white wine. Ragu is the classic Italian pasta sauce, a slowly cooked meat mixture that typically comes out dry. This one was moist and sweet, shot through with the flavor of duck. “I’d come back just for this,” I said.

“Frankly,” said Aunt Emily, “I’d come back even if the food were awful. This is the first time in years I’ve felt really comfortable in a restaurant. We used to go out to be pampered, but you young people seem to go out to be abused. And,” she added, “the food is far from awful. This sea bass is delicious.” She glanced at my plate. “Although I must tell you, that does not look like my idea of food.”

My salad did look unusual: a fan of bright orange slices of pumpkin was dotted with raisins and framed by a mane of mache. In the center were crisp, rare pieces of squab. The flavors were equally colorful, the pumpkin and raisins setting off the natural sweetness of the squab.

“You must taste this!” cried Aunt Emily. Her next course was a slice of pork--moist, tender meat crowned with a crisp crust and served with a puree of Savoy cabbage. “Elegant,” said Aunt Emily. “Simple. Delicious.”

Meanwhile, I was eating a remarkable dish of squid sliced into tiny, lacy rings and served in its own ink with little roasted carrots. It had a delicacy not generally associated with squid; even Aunt Emily, who would not normally be caught with a squid in her mouth, condescended to taste it.

Aunt Emily liked dessert, too--especially the tiramisu in its little silver cup. She was pleased with the strong, small espresso. And she went rosy with pleasure when presented with a dish of chocolates at the end of the meal.

“Look,” I said as she was eating the last of these, “there’s the chef.” She looked up. “Nonsense,” she said, “that can’t be the chef. It’s a woman. A very young woman.”

“Her name is Odette Fada,” I said. “She’s 31 and very much the chef here.”

Aunt Emily stared at the woman in the toque. “It’s a new world,” she sighed. “Even in a restaurant like this, which reminds you how gracious the old one used to be.”

Rex Il Ristorante, 617 S. Olive St., Los Angeles; (213) 627-2300. Open Thursday and Friday for lunch, Monday through Saturday for dinner. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $68-$140.