RESTAURANTS : TRYSTING THE NIGHT AWAY : It May Not Be a Romantic Hideaway, but It’s the Best Place in Town for Hot Bites

Tryst calls itself “a secret meeting place for lovers.” A charming idea, particularly if you want lots and lots of people to get a look at your secret meeting.

It’s the brainchild of Mario Oliver, best known for the Vertigo nightclub downtown. For Tryst’s visuals, Oliver hired Ron Meyers, the designer responsible for Club Lux at the Santa Monica Airport and the glitzy-dramatic Atlas Bar & Grill on Wilshire Boulevard. Not to put too fine a point on it, don’t expect a dimly lit hideaway with cozy booths. Tryst’s walls sport antique mirrors with giant faux gems, the ceiling lights look like red Christmas trees hung upside-down, and you can see and be seen with excellent clarity all the way across the red-and-golden-hued dining room.

So it’s not discreet. In fact, it’s showy. To find the dining room after about 8:30, you have to thrust your way through a bar packed with fashionable, rather show-bizzy people: tall, expensively dressed men with ponytails and soft-featured young women wearing stark, blushless makeup.

The dining room is likely to be packed, too, though now that I think of it, the people look more like ordinary dinner-table affinity groups and deal makers than romantics. Actually, though, this might be a great secret meeting place anyway, on the principle of hiding in plain sight--and, at this restaurant, in a fair amount of noise.

But here’s the thing: When a non-Italian place pulls in crowds like these, you don’t expect much on the menu but steak, Caesar salad and skinless chicken breast. At Tryst, however, the reins are held by chef Ralf Marhencke, known for the compulsively exotic creations he produced at Noa Noa two years ago.

Here, Marhencke’s foreign-flavored dishes retain a somewhat greater connection with the familiar. Mashed potatoes and mustard gravy served with grilled squab says it in a nutshell. This one is an appetizer, by the way--or rather, a “Bite.” The left-hand page of the menu is divided into Hot Bites and Cold Bites, and you could easily make a meal of two or three of these (which run from $5.95 to $9.95) without ever nibbling at the entree side.

Fettuccine with lemon, mushrooms, parsley and Parmesan can also be ordered as an entree, though the menu lists it only as a Bite. It’s a simple idea but a very good one, and if I wanted a starch-based main course, I’d certainly choose it over the Thai curry basmati rice--in effect, a crunchy risotto flavored with tomato and coconut, mostly, and topped with sauteed shrimp and basil.

The Bites section runs to 22 items, including some real gems such as the barbecue baby back ribs with smoked tomato sauce and string potatoes. The elegant sauce is slightly sweet and surprisingly light. Unfortunately, you can no longer get the frisee salad adorned with little herb-coated slices of roast venison, which was, in effect, a spot of excellent spa cuisine.

But no kitchen is versatile enough to do justice to all the culinary styles adverted to here. The Chinese vegetable-and-chicken roll (a Noa Noa legacy) is crunchy and has a pleasant dash of sweet peppers, but the pink peppercorn-plum sauce has no discernible intention. The “chilled salad from soba noodles” is pleasantly vinegary but a trifle indistinct. A couple of pizzas are listed, but watch for scorched crusts.

The Bites, in other words, are hit-and-miss. The entrees seem solid, though. The peppered-and-sesame-crusted tuna has a savory and amazingly adherent crust on one side, with an appropriate soy-garlic sauce. Marhencke presents a respectable Chinese-style air-dried duck--with almost-black skin and a rich duck flavor--served on wild rice with a ginger-cherry sauce, lest anybody conclude that this is actually Chinese food.

When you see the words ragout of sweetbreads on a menu, you tend to imagine something in cream sauce. At Tryst, however, the sweetbreads are cut into chunks and served with wild mushrooms, pearl onions and an impressive dark-red sauce of meat glaze, port wine and balsamic vinegar. The dish is meaty and satisfyingly tangy.

One night there was a special of swordfish on a bed of lentils, diced carrots and potatoes, all in a tart cream sauce--a remarkable combination of flavors. It must be said, though, that it gave substance to the charge, made by one of my guests, that Tryst’s food resembles what you get in a certain kind of hotel restaurant: plain American eats with exotic tickles.

In fact, parts of this menu are close to being well-prepared plain American eats, which is no criticism. Roasted pork loin comes with a European-style gravy plus a sweet, jammy compote of apples and shallots that goes one better than applesauce. The sirloin is cut up, nouvelle fashion, but it’s covered with yam chips (an exotic version of potato chips) and fried red onions, and what’s more retro than steak and onions? Roasted chicken with herbs is the ultimate common denominator of French and American cuisines.

One dessert casts the rest into the shade. It’s the Valrhona chocolate-mousse cake, and if you don’t recognize the name, you aren’t a real chocolate addict. Valrhona is a premium French chocolatier, and this is one chocolaty cake: devil’s food with a frosting that’s like solid couverture chocolate and a thick and richly flavored milk-chocolate-mousse filling. Around it flows creme anglaise with sticks of dark chocolate.

The rest is more familiar stuff: a tart consisting of a single layer of thin-sliced apples in fresh caramel sauce. A Tahitian vanilla creme brulee (in place of a hard sugar crust on top, a shard of sugar stands upright next to it on the plate, like part of a broken window). A triangle of white-chocolate cake enclosed in a fine tissue of dark chocolate. An almond-coated cheesecake that bears no recognizable almonds and has a disconcertingly funky cheese flavor.

So what do we know? Tryst may be a meeting place, but not a secret one, and if lovers do attend, they must show up when I’m not there--after 10, for instance, when I’ve never been able to get a table. From a safe distance, Tryst looks like the return of grazing--with glitz.

Tryst, 401 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 289- 1600. Open for lunch Monday through Friday, for dinner nightly. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards. Dinner for two, food only, $52-$76.

Suggested dishes: barbecue baby back ribs, $5.95; fettuccine with lemon, $8.95; peppered-and-sesame-crusted tuna, $17.95; ragout of sweetbreads, $15.95; crispy Chinese air-dried duck, $17.95; Valrhona chocolate-mousse cake, $6. Food stylist: Norman Stewart