RESTAURANT REVIEW : Couple Cooks Classy Cuisine in Montecito : Top-notch dining lures lots of patrons to the white-linen cafe, which means that getting a table can take some time.

Mark and Margaret Houston met at chefs’ school in San Francisco, got married and ventured out into the cruel but exciting world of restaurants.

They worked here and there. They were both in the kitchen at Montecito’s San Ysidro Ranch for a while. Then Mark became the chef at small, fashionable Brigitte’s on State Street in Santa Barbara, and Margaret was involved with the front of the house.

About eight years ago, they figured they’d try it on their own.

Now, it’s not much of a secret that the mortality rate of new restaurants is one of the highest of all small businesses in the country. It’s not cheap to open a good restaurant, and the odds against making it are enormous.

But the Houstons’ Montecito Cafe, on Coast Village Road, is thriving. Not many white-linen restaurants can fill up a room four times a night, as this place sometimes does. It’s a tribute to the cafe’s consistently good, and frequently excellent, food.

Unfortunately, to get to the food, especially on weekends, you’ve got to deal with the restaurant’s maddening reservation policy: They only reserve about one-third of the 22 tables, and those are usually gone a week or so in advance. The rest of us, even arriving as early as, say, 6:30 in the evening, have to wait often for as long as an hour.

It must work, because there we were, hanging around in the lobby of the Montecito Inn, where the cafe’s tables front large windows looking out onto the boulevard.

Originally, locals--though generally enthusiastic--did have a couple of small problems with the operation. The noise level, for one, was high. Recently, some renovation out front eliminated some of the problem. Still, we were left longing for fewer decibels in the room closest to the kitchen and in the small, intimate wine bar at the rear.

The other problem was in the portions, which--even in those days, when the word nouvelle was synonymous with small--were none too hefty.

Well, either my appetite has diminished or portions have increased, but in recent months I’ve never found myself leaving hungry.

The menu does seem to take a minimalist approach: lots of salads--albeit large, sometimes complicated ones--and a grouping of contemporary pastas. This is not, at first glance, a place for red-meat lovers. Yet, if you look carefully and pay attention to the evening specials, meat eaters should go away satisfied. In fact, Mark Houston is at his best with red meat and possibly fish.

The grilled leg of lamb ($9.25), medium red, sliced and juicy, is one of the best you’ll find anyplace. It’s done with rosemary and roasted garlic, with the sauce coming from the lamb stock. It is absolutely superb, as is the lamb loin ($14.95), occasionally a special, in any one of a variety of sauces.

Another succulent occasional special is the thick veal steak ($17.95), also served in a number of different sauces. I enjoyed a light cream sauce of chanterelle mushrooms--perfectly done.

The grilled pork chops ($11.95), however, would not be my meat of choice. They are served with a lightly flavored curry sauce and an excellent apple chutney on the side, neither of which redeems the pork. It is dry--an occupational hazard for those restaurants serving thin pork chops.

The emphasis on salads means that some of them are actually main dishes. One of these stars is romaine ($6.95) tossed with Gorgonzola cheese, bacon, chicken, avocado and tomato. Is that rich enough? They also serve a cold--some might say too cold--variety of crisp vegetables ($6.95), with a small piece of cold salmon beautifully prepared, moist and juicy.

Pastas, notwithstanding the tantalizing descriptions--”capellini with rock shrimp, pesto, grilled peppers and virgin olive oil”--are not the most exciting choices on the menu. There is much too much virgin olive oil in the capellini ($7.95), and the spinach fettuccine ($8.50) with scallops, dried tomatoes and pine nuts in a cream sauce turns out to be just another dish.

It would be difficult to improve on the fish dishes. One night, on the list of specials, there was a lovely grilled swordfish ($12.50) served in lemon, garlic and cilantro. Another evening there was a piece of broiled whitefish in a butter sauce with green peppercorns ($9.50).

Appetizers seem to run the gamut. The dullest item on the entire menu is the grilled pasilla chile ($4.50), with Emmentaler cheese and a tomato vinaigrette. The cheese is the only one of the three ingredients with any zest, character or flavor. The chopped romaine heart salad ($3.75) is excellent, with garlic vinaigrette, croutons and Parmesan cheese.

Probably the best of the appetizers are the goat cheese pancakes ($4.95), with salmon gravlax and tiny dabs of caviar. Flavors merge from the pancakes and the hefty, not too oily gravlax.

Montecito Cafe is not the place to pass on dessert. Although some of us are die-hard fans of heavy New York-style cheesecake, the lighter version served here ($4) is one of the best I’ve ever eaten.

Details

* WHAT: Montecito Cafe.

* WHEN: Open for lunch and dinner seven days, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., 5:30 to 10 p.m.

* WHERE: 1295 Coast Village Road, Montecito.

* HOW MUCH: Lunch for two, food only, $15 to $56.

* ETC: Wine and beer. Limited reservations accepted. Major credit cards accepted.

* CALL: 969-3392.