RESTAURANTS : BIG-CITY GLAMOUR : Cafe Pinot Has Glamour, a Varied Menu, Outdoor Tables. And It’s All Downtown.

For a major metropolitan area, Los Angeles offers remarkably few choices for serious eating Downtown. After Rex, Water Grill and Chinatown, it’s pretty much a wasteland out there. Then Joachim Splichal, one of the first L.A. restaurateurs to venture into the Valley, set his sights on Downtown.

First came Patinette, his tiny, no-frills lunchroom in the courtyard of the Museum of Contemporary Art, last year. Then in February he launched Cafe Pinot, next to the Central Library and the adjoining Maguire Gardens.

With white-clothed tables and canvas umbrellas set out under the trees, it takes glorious advantage of the city’s fine weather. At night, it’s a wonderfully dramatic urban space with skyscrapers, every window ablaze, leaning over the smaller, almost all-glass cafe. There’s a definite bright-lights, big-city buzz missing from most Downtown restaurants. Cafe Pinot feels cosmopolitan, a bit glamorous.

This is Splichal’s fourth L.A.-area restaurant (his first, Patina, opened in 1989) and his second with Octavio Becerra, his partner and corporate executive chef at Pinot Bistro in Studio City. Keeping that many balls in the air is tricky. But Wolfgang Puck seems to do it. Michel Richard does it. And the Drago brothers are working on it.

Splichal bills this restaurant, which has a rusted iron silhouette of a waiter in long apron as its logo, as a California-French brasserie . There’s a big rotisserie behind the window looking into the kitchen, a plat du jour for every weekday at both lunch and dinner, daily spa menus and business lunch menus. At the takeout window on the side, you can pick up a pastry and coffee in the morning or a sandwich or salad and a cold drink for lunch. In case you missed lunch, the cafe is also open through the afternoon for spit-roasted chicken, snacks and desserts. It’s just what Downtown needs.

What’s a brasserie without oysters? Here they come in half a dozen varieties (sometimes less) at $1.10 a piece--that’s just $13.20 for a dozen cool, briny oysters on the half-shell. There’s a “Bakersfield” onion soup (a.k.a. French onion soup with a gratineed crust of Gruyere cheese) and what the menu calls “soup of yesterday.” One day it was a rich, satisfying puree of white beans and salmon swirled with parsley oil. On another it was a fine, chilled potato and garlic soup decorated with a spiral of creme frai^che.

Pass up the dull Caesar for the excellent endive salad: each satiny, pale whole leaf is coated with balsamic vinaigrette and bits of Maytag blue cheese. Polenta studded with rosy rock shrimp, pancetta and asparagus, or seared scallops set down on an earthy white bean puree, make wonderful first courses or a light supper. And I love the fat snails cloaked in a good red wine sauce and heaped into a hollowed-out slab of brioche, which soaks up the beautiful, winy juices.

With the exception of the lighter, flavorful spa dishes, and some of the fish dishes, main courses tend to be robust. Even at the end of April, the menu still lists hearty cold-weather fare--roasted leg of lamb, braised veal roast, beef short ribs. . . . I loved the winter menu’s barley “risotto,” made entirely with barley, each grain firm and separate, with succulent braised oxtail piled in the middle. A hefty seared tuna steak with peppery mustard greens and chunks of ham hock is bold and very good. But the real winner is Friday’s plat du jour : suckling pig with plenty of irresistible cracklings and a punchy three-mustard sauce.

On my first visit, I happened to pick almost all the best dishes. But it’s just as easy to end up with a disappointing meal--as a group of us did at lunch recently. A single piece of bruschetta topped with tasteless tomatoes, roasted red peppers and avocado for $6? A salad billed as roasted tomato and mozzarella cheese with an intense basil oil turns out to be just a dull version of caprese with sliced, cottony--definitely not roasted--tomatoes and rubbery mozzarella drizzled with a little basil-infused oil.

What’s stuffed about this stuffed burger? we ask, puzzled. “Oh, we used to stuff it with cheese, but we don’t do that anymore,” says the waiter. The marinated salmon sandwich ($12.50!) is so bready, it’s difficult to taste either the salmon or the little bit of horseradish cream. Worst is the trio of “ready-made salads,” every one of them limp and old tasting, and no bargain at $12.50.

Desserts, however, are the saving grace. The homemade ice creams are usually wonderful, especially a dark, smooth coffee. There’s a good strawberry shortcake made with big, ripe berries, a decent creme bru^lee and a nice brioche pudding, tender and sweet, with white hearts combed into the chocolate sauce.

Three months along, the cafe is still working out kinks. The rotisserie takes some skill to master. Roti chicken has been flaccid, dried out every time I’ve ordered it--and it really does need that mustard sauce to spike up the flavor. Fries showered with parsley are terrific, though.

They’re still sorting things out in the dining room, too. One night, someone at our table spills his glass of wine while the maitre d’ looks on. Does he help? Does he bring napkins to sop up the mess? Summon the waitress? It makes you wonder if anybody’s home, given that Splichal is known for running a very tight ship.

With its outdoor tables and varied menu, the cafe is a sure draw at lunch. And if Splichal and Becerra can pull things together, Cafe Pinot just may start drawing people Downtown again--at night. Now wouldn’t that be something?

Cafe Pinot, 700 West 5th St. , Los Angeles; (213) 239-6500. Closed Saturdays at lunch and Sundays. Parking available in lot below library during the day for two hours and $3.30 with validation. Self-parking and valet parking available at night. Dinner for two, $46-$70. Corkage, $12.