RESTAURANT REVIEW : Amici: Funky Elegance in a Motor Hotel

Located by the intersection of Melrose, Santa Monica and Doheny, just over the border into Beverly Hills, the Beverly Terrace Motor Hotel houses rock ‘n’ rollers, tourists, salesmen-types and a small, elegant Italian restaurant called Trattoria Amici. A few steps away from the motel’s lobby, with its patio facing Santa Monica Boulevard, this Trattoria is a charming little secret, a kind of local hole in the wall for a very ritzy neighborhood.

On my first visit, I hadn’t made reservations: It’s Tuesday night, for goodness sake, around 9. You could conceivably walk into Spago and be seated. But Trattoria Amici is packed, and the host, a poised young man I remember from Cucina Espressa and Florian, predicts a half-hour wait.

We sit out on the hedge-sheltered patio, on a green slat bench. Nearby, are a table of women in Chanel knockoffs and a table of earnest male filmmakers talking about tennis. A waiter brings us drinks, but we are tormented watching great-looking plates of pizza and pasta and veal chops sail past.

Soon enough, we’re conducted inside the restaurant itself, a pretty, low, white room. The decor is alluringly spare: a pine china cabinet, a huge display of dried flowers, an antiqued wooden chair nailed to the wall. Candles flicker on tables and lights are low, flattering. We have trouble reading the menu and seeing our food, yet even in these paltry few watts, we recognize Rod Stewart at the next table.

“Why do I expect to see David Hockney walk in next?” asks one member of our party.

Perhaps, we answer, because our waiter, with his blonde hair, British accent and striped tie, strongly resembles David Hockney. Or perhaps, because each time the rear door to the restaurant opens, we see the shimmering blue-green of the motel’s swimming pool, which resembles a David Hockney painting.

All told, Trattoria Amici has just enough funk to lend it an exotic edge and just enough snootiness to discourage a more casual crowd. The prices, it should be said, would not discourage anybody: they’re on a par with most other mid-priced Italian restaurants in the city, and the food, in general, is far above average.

Appetizers, I deduce after several visits, tend to be small, clever studies in texture. Fresh, lightly steamed asparagus spears retain a good, knuckly crunch that contrasts nicely with a heap of slippery, silken grilled oyster mushrooms. Lengths of soft, cured salmon are daubed with sour cream, sprinkled with chives, and bundled around gratifyingly crisp potato threads. Velvety goat cheese is wrapped in grilled eggplant, crowned with pesto. In all of their unpeeled, crustaceous splendor, two split tiger shrimp perch on greens speckled with tiny French lentils: To fully appreciate this dish, however--and to extract the meat from these creatures--more light is desperately needed.

Waiters distribute slices of thin, bubbly crusted pizzas at the table; we especially liked a “white” pizza with mozzarella, a sprinkling of fresh herbs and translucent, paper-thin slices of prosciutto.

Tagliatelle with chunks of fresh carrots, broccoli and tomato is undercooked and under-inspired, however. Calamari added to spaghetti and clams intensifies the dish’s oceanic, briny edge--too bad it’s a little salty.

If you’re hungry for seafood, cut to the chase and order the Adriatic fish soup, a heady, flavorful tomato and garlic-rich brodo teeming with scallops, clams, halibut and tiger shrimp. Smoky, grilled garlic crostini are provided to soak up every last drop.

The waiter recommends a grilled rib-eye to our serious meat eater, but the steak, sliced and set to swim in a dull balsamic-scented sauce, doesn’t live up to its press. Far better--wonderful, in fact--is a tender, juicy chicken breast that’s pounded flat, redolent of lemon, strewn with plump capers.

The savory food here is so satisfying, it’s hard to save room for dessert. Once, three of us split a slice of rather tired blueberry tart which, inexplicably, was set in a grid of chocolate syrup.

* Trattoria Amici, 469 N. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills . (310) 858-0271. Open for lunch Thursdays and Fridays. Open for dinner, Mondays through Saturdays. Beer and wine served. Valet parking. Visa, MasterCard and American Express accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $30 to $55.