Relationship Between Art and Light : Dining review: Patina’s Joachim Splichal presides over a less serious event of young chefs and fresh ideas.

The Art of Dining VIII, Sunday evening’s annual benefit for the Newport Harbor Art Museum, had a distinctly lighter, younger and less-serious ring this year. The one constant remained coordinating chef Joachim Splichal, who again put forth Olympian efforts to make the dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel an unqualified success.

Anyone in attendance who was unfamiliar with Splichal, chef-owner of Patina and three other Los Angeles-area restaurants, came to know him personally before the evening’s finish.

Splichal again pulled together a team of superstar chefs, this time young, West Coast luminaries from such cities as Seattle and San Francisco. The master chef’s organizational skills and Napoleonic presence are what make these dinners work. The large, noisy group of guests became suddenly attentive when he seemed to chide them after the dessert course. More about that later.

The dinner was held in honor of sculptor Robert Graham, in attendance with his wife, actress Anjelica Huston. Graham is a Los Angeles artist whose representations of the human figure have been showcased throughout the world, and a brief video about him was shown between the mussel soup and the Diver sea scallops. That was perhaps the only other occasion during which the guests toned down these proceedings.

Throughout the party, the various chefs came out to discuss their dishes, followed by descriptions of the different wines by Michael Mondavi. But little was heard above the din.

Octavio Rene Becerra of Pinot Bistro in Studio City began things with a wonderful smoked escolar (in the sea bass family,) paired with a delicious, green-tinged fingerling potato salad in what was described on the menu as an “intense garlic chive oil.”

Following that was Four Seasons’ executive chef Michel Pieton’s Canadian mussel soup with fennel and essence of saffron, an elegant crowd pleaser with two tiny mussels and one creamy quenelle of lobster lurking at the bottom.

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After the Graham video came the evening’s most unusual and controversial dish--Diver sea scallops, in the shell, brushed with a cool, slightly unapproachable cucumber vinaigrette, the creation of Scott Carlsberg of Seattle’s Lampreia.

Next came the annual auction, where donated prizes were sold to the highest bidders, proceeds going to the museum. While the auction raged, chef Michael Mina of San Francisco’s Aqua presented pancetta -wrapped Atlantic cod, and chef Loretta Keller of San Francisco’ Bizou countered with a rare grilled Sonoma squab, alongside a crisp potato onion galette .

A dazzling dessert came from Splichal’s own pastry chef, Victor Cordes of Patina. The menu referred to it as a rhubarb and strawberry croustade, neglecting to tell about the plate’s scene stealer, a chocolate covered mini-dome stuffed with sun-dried cherries.

With everyone in a merry mood, Splichal made his entrance. Commanding attention in a way that had eluded the other chefs, he spoke briefly about his team, supporting their restaurants and the fact that similar items in a different auction in Los Angeles recently had brought far more money from bidders. Splichal can be riveting, when he wants to be.

Still, Art of Dining, whose raison d’e^tre is to raise money for the museum, did just that, with an anticipated net of $200,000 from the auction and dinner, for which about 440 guests paid $300 a plate.

* O.C. RSVP

Hundreds of guests enjoy art and the Art of Dining. E5