RESTAURANT REVIEW : Silver Grille: It’s Hard to Join the Club

In cool, trendy places, the hipper you are, the more desirable your table will be and the more attentive your service. Or even, the better the food. I’ll never forget madly scanning the menu at a fancy Italian restaurant to find the lovely focaccia I saw people eating, only to learn later that it only went out to pals of the owner.

But trendy restaurants are not the only ones to cultivate a certain clientele. Take the Silver Grille in Beverly Hills, for example.

This restaurant, located in the old Noa Noa space on Bedford Drive, is the second Silver Grille; the first is a small indoor-outdoor place nestled amid the boutiques in Encino’s Plaza Del Oro. The Beverly Hills store has an entirely different, flashier look. The ceilings are high, the walls slate-gray and hung with black-and-white airbrushed paintings of famous Hollywood photographs: Brando on his motorbike, Garbo peering through her fingers, Bogart staring into Marilyn’s cleavage. The chairs, elaborate iron things, are surprisingly comfortable.

It was a Saturday night, and my friend and I were dressed up. She was in a lime-green linen pantsuit that had gotten her rushed to the front of the line at many a private dance club. It wouldn’t do a thing for us at the Silver Grille, however.

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We pushed through the heavy glass doors, waited at the desk. Nobody was there to greet us. I knew from previous visits that you’re not supposed to seat yourself. After a while, a hostess climbed off her stool at the bar and came over. We were on time for our reservations and there were a few empty tables, but we were told to wait. Two older couples showed up and the hostess rushed to them with hugs and kisses. We waited at the bar for 20 minutes and then were led to a small table way in the back where, we discovered, the easy-listening music is actually live--the singer had amped himself to sound just like canned music.

It was another 40 minutes before we got our salads.

I do not believe that there was any malice at work that night; ineptitude, yes, and perhaps an inclination to pick and choose among customers during peak hours. On slower evenings, we were greeted with more warmth and served more promptly. Still, the service was less than exemplary. Plates weren’t cleared between courses, uneaten food we had packaged to take home was lost.

In general, the Silver Grille reminds me of a downscale version of Chasen’s. ( “We only look expensive,” reads the signboard at the front door.) Like Chasen’s, it’s schmoozy, clubby, a neighborhood restaurant in the suburb of Beverly Hills, and the median age has to be around 60. Most 20- and 30-somethings you’ll see there are accompanied by a parent.

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Food also helps a restaurant self-select a clientele, and the Silver Grille’s is extraordinarily ordinary. To some, that’s a virtue.

The house mixed salad is a welcome anomaly in this world of baby lettuce: a bed of red leaf lettuce covered with grated vegetables and sliced mushrooms. As a special, the waitress offers a “tri-color” salad; she means, of course, the classic Italian tricolore , here served dry, with goat cheese. The chilled artichoke is a cold, sodden thistle bud with an uninspired tarragon dressing. Dressings for all these dishes are served on the side, as per the dieter’s eternal request.

Entrees are served with carrots and broccoli or undercooked green beans. The grilled meats, poultry and fish are mildly seasoned. Roast chicken with lemon garlic and herbs is a little dry. A fat center cut pork chop is awfully pink in its thickest point and the accompanying, delicious mashed potatoes aren’t as hot as we’d wish. The culotte steak has some gristle. But portions are generous, so you can eat around the problem spots.

Pastas, while prosaic, may be the best meals at the Silver Grille. Penne with a fresh chopped tomato sauce comes with petals of Jamaican jerk chicken sausage. A special seafood pasta, if a little dry from sitting too long under the warming lights, has nicely grilled scallops, plenty of clams and mussels.

The lemon tart is extremely tart and grainy with undissolved cornstarch, but both the apple tarte tartin and the creme brulee are perfectly good. If I ever go back to the Silver Grill, let it be when I’m a silver fox.

Silver Grille, 464 N. Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 288-0781. Lunch Monday through Saturday, dinner nightly. Full bar. Major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $25-$65.