ECLIPSED : Maybe It’s Just Something About the Southwest Corner of Melrose and Robertson

Early this year, when Mortons moved across the street to expanded quarters on the former site of Trumps, Bernard Erpicum nabbed the old Mortons spot for his new restaurant. The well-connected former Spago maitre d’ then signed up Serge Falesitch, another Spago (and Chinois) alumnus, to be his partner and executive chef; they hired Lambert Monet, the Impressionist’s great-grandson, and Henk Rijkers as designers. Provencal-California, or St.-Tropez meets West Hollywood. The name? Eclipse. Subtitle: cuisine of the sun.

Erpicum has opened up the large dining room by moving the bar up front and adding a glassed-in kitchen and an outdoor seating area. Despite the curvy pink banquettes, swaths of taffeta at the windows and Alexander Mihaylovich’s startling neoclassical painting of a pharaoh, it still looks awfully familiar. Cars turning into the discreet driveway already know the way. Eclipse is definitely a dress-up kind of place, with designer labels, acres of decolletage and studied tans. Same faces, different decor. The ghost of Mortons Mondays past.

Call for a reservation at 8 on a weeknight, and you are told to come at 6:30 or 9. When you arrive at 9, there isn’t an available table inside or out. “The wait is much shorter for a table in the garden,” the hostess assures us repeatedly. No, no, I’ll wait for an inside table. I’ve been whisked into the garden on two previous occasions to sit with the unknown-to-Erpicum crowd, and lovely as it is on a balmy night, I’d rather, this once, sit inside with the A-list.

Also, I’m curious. My experience in the garden has been less than stellar. The waiter frequently forgot all about us, and when we were remembered, not once in a three-course meal for five did the right dish go to the right person. We soldiered on through a series of disasters: acrid grilled-eggplant-and-red-pepper soup; mealy langoustines so overcooked they had shriveled in their shells; an oily wild mushroom salad with hardly a fungus, wild or domesticated, to be found . . . and that was just for starters. Not once did Erpicum stick his nose out the door to check on those of us exiled to the great outdoors.

The specialty at Eclipse is whole fish brushed with olive oil and baked in a fruitwood-fired oven, just as at dozens of little places in the south of France. Before you order, the waiter shows off a platter of handsome, fresh-looking fish. Striped bass, John Dory, scorpion fish, Florida snapper. The concept is very appealing, more so when you glimpse the floppy-toqued cooks slipping whole fish into the glowing oven. Timing is tricky; with a single exception, the fish arrived each time dry and terribly overdone, inexpertly filleted. The kitchen has taken pains to procure such beautiful fresh fish, it’s even more of a shame. But when they do get it right, it is a subtly delicious way to eat fish.

I did have better luck with a couple of specials that managed to suggest what the cooks could be capable of, if they ever got on top of the timing in this busy kitchen. Dainty fillets of red mullet with basil and the Louisiana prawns with a spunky corn salsa are fresh tasting and well executed. Eclipse’s menu is so straightforward it doesn’t demand three-star technique, just competent cooks and waiters who pick up the food on time.

Still waiting at 9:59 for that 9 o’clock table, our fortunes suddenly reverse when Erpicum seems to recognize someone in our party. Though he can’t quite put a name to the face, he’s not taking chances. A table inside materializes, one of the best in the house. To make up for our hour wait, he offers a dish: artichoke risotto, which takes a while to cook.

While we long for food, we take in the scene: Disney’s Michael Eisner, the fabulously wealthy Bass brothers, Red Buttons. Assorted blondes. Two bodyguards, telltale earphone cords tucked into collars, sussing out the room as they get a young sheik and his guests settled at a big table.

Eclipse is all too egalitarian: You don’t get better food just because Erpicum thinks he recognizes you. Norwegian salmon in parchment, ordered rare, comes out very far from it. Presented in a Chinese bamboo steamer, Chilean sea bass has been steamed to within an inch of its life, so overcooked it falls right off the fork. Sauteed Dover sole, topped with sage and sliced almonds, a beautiful piece of fish, is leathery and ruined. Surf ‘n’ turf--overcooked lobster and a decent filet mignon--turns out to be one of the better dishes.

Considering the background of the chef and maitre d’, the number of missteps is inexplicable. On one visit, our tomatoey Santa Barbara rockfish soup holds chunks of rock cod, lots of rubbery squid, a single mussel and none of the clams described. Asked about the lack of clams, our waiter shoots us a hostile look and heads back to the kitchen. After a good long time, a different waiter plunks down a plate of steamed clams.

Erpicum, who is also a sommelier and stars in his own wine video, has built a brightly lighted cellar-shrine in one corner of the dining room. The displayed bottles are all a Cabernet produced by one of his limited partners. There he is on the label, the noble forehead, the granite chin: Steven Seagal in the guise of a Roman bust. To be fair, Erpicum has put together a nice collection of wines from Santa Barbara County, the central coast and northern counties, and a predictable selection of Burgundies and Bordeaux.

Despite its premium location, the right crowd and its experienced chef and maitre d’, Eclipse is still at the dress-rehearsal stage. The entire staff needs a lot more practice before this restaurant is ready for prime time.

Eclipse, 8800 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; (310) 724- 5959. Dinner only; closed Sundays. Smoking permitted in terrace and lounge. Valet parking. Dinner for two, food only, $65 - $94. Corkage, $14.