STYLE : RESTAURANTS : CURRENT AFFAIRS

It’s always a thrill to walk through the hushed grandeur of Downtown’s Pacific Center, past the imposing marble staircase and the striped brass elevator, to the Water Grill. On the other side of the heavy glass door, the 4-year-old seafood house fairly bustles: The phone is ringing. There’s a huddle at the reservation desk. The bar is full. And every booth is taken as servers rush by with bowls of chowder and plates of seafood.

In the center of the room, where the larger tables are set up, businessmen roll up their sleeves and tuck into Alaskan wild king salmon, Coronado yellowtail or Idaho trout. Couples in two-seater booths toast each other with glasses of Champagne and polish off a couple dozen oysters. There’s a full-fledged oyster bar as well, and the room is appropriately decorated with cheerful water-themed, Cubist-inspired murals and Japanese paper lights in the shape of fish.

Two years ago, during my first visit to Water Grill, I was enchanted with those lavish iced platters of shellfish, the ultimate luxury for any lover of really fresh seafood. The raw oysters and clams, chilled Dungeness crab, rosy prawns, lobster tails and whatever else had come in that day, looked absolutely splendid arranged on their special stand. I ordered some sea snails, too, and spent the next hour slurping oysters, cracking open crabs and dipping snails in aioli.

But more recently, when I order a “fruits of the sea” platter for four, not only does it seem awfully meager for $64, the quality isn’t all that it should be. Several varieties of briny oysters, sweet little raw clams, tiny bite-sized Louisiana crayfish and a small lobster tail are lovely. But a pretty green sea urchin is medicinal-tasting; the crab legs aren’t all that fresh and, worst of all, the big pink prawns are inexcusably mealy. The aioli is disappointing, too: It taste like minced garlic stirred into a mayonnaise instead of a sauce based on a paste of garlic and salt.

Happily, you can still count on the briny, fresh oysters--Coromandel, Malpeque, Kumamoto, Fanny Bay and others--at prices as high as I’ve ever seen. And the kitchen does a good job with steamed mussels and clams in white wine and garlic. But a jumbo white Mexican shrimp cocktail seems pricey for what you get: four shrimp and a cocktail sauce that tastes a lot like plain ketchup. Crab cocktail goes unfinished one day due to crab that’s been around too long.

Other promising starters suffer as well. A beguiling tartar sauce spiked with a burst of cumin and chili powder can’t save the deep-fried calamari, which are rubbery and sodden with oil. The perfectly silky smoked salmon doesn’t benefit from leaden potato pancakes. And Dungeness crab cakes in a feisty black bean and ginger sauce could be terrific--if the crab wasn’t so tired. Doesn’t anyone in the kitchen recognize the difference?

Main courses are listed by their provenance, so the first order of business is to locate your fish. If you feel like a nice piece of halibut, look under “Pacific Northwest,” where there’s also a halibut crusted with hazelnuts and served in blueberry vinaigrette. Or, if you’re in the mood for scallops, check out the “Atlantic Coast” listings, where you’ll find seared scallops with roasted garlic, smoked salmon and lobster tarragon cream. As you might imagine, you can get a headache scouring the menu for a fish that doesn’t sound overwrought or too much like a dessert.

As it turns out, I’m happy with two gorgeous hunks of wild king salmon grilled so they’re translucent at the center and crusty at the edges, but I could definitely lose the hazelnut mashed potatoes underneath, which make it impossible to take a bite of fish without also getting some gritty spuds. And the Port wine sauce is so sweet and reduced that it’s a sticky syrup. A delicate daurade from New Zealand is blanketed in fine, overlapping potato “scales” to keep it moist. Its sauce, a beurre blanc strewn with chives and spoonfuls of salty caviar, with pieces of smoked salmon thrown in for good measure, is as discordant as an out-of-tune violin: The daurade doesn’t have a chance. Monkfish rubbed with Moroccan spices could be intriguing. If only the chef had stopped there. Piling on a wild mushroom “flan” and a sauce billed as “truffle essence” just creates a confusion of flavors.

I have to wonder if anyone has sat down and tested any of these dishes recently. Rare yellowfin tuna and blue prawns are delicious on their own, but they’re paired with springy soba noodles in an achingly sweet peanut sauce. And a nice piece of mahi-mahi, set on a skein of zucchini “noodles,” is marred by an acrid tomato-ginger chutney.

One night my dining companion stares at his crab-stuffed halibut sadly. “You know, when I mentioned to a friend who works Downtown that we were coming here tonight, he did warn me: ‘Be safe and order the steaks.’ Now I wish I had.” So next time, my companion tries the marinated flank steak and ends up with incredibly tough beef that tastes of straight vinegar. Maybe his friend was talking about the filet mignon.

After several visits, I finally find a delicious roasted Chilean sea bass, marinated in sweet brown kasu and served alongside deep green steamed spinach and fragrant jasmine rice freckled with black sesame seeds. Grilled Lake Superior whitefish is also quite good with basil mashed potatoes and a yellow tomato compote tossed with strips of sweet red pepper.

Water Grill has an innovative wine and beer program, including a good selection of micro-brewed draft beers. The appealing list of mostly California wines is arranged by variety and characteristics so that you can look for a “lean/crisp” white wine to accompany oysters, crab and smoked fish or a full-bodied Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay to go with lobster and scallops. The list also has some good red wines. Serious wine buffs should ask to see the reserve list for some older Chardonnays and Cabernets and interesting Zinfandels, three from the hot new property Turley Vineyards.

I know I go to a seafood restaurant expressly to eat fish. But aside from the oyster bar’s offerings and the simple things like steamed mussels, Water Grill seems too intent on coming up with dishes that taste like anything but fish.

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WATER GRILL

CUISINE: Seafood. AMBIENCE: Clubby fish house with handsome wood bar where the day’s shellfish is displayed on ice. BEST DISHES: oysters on the half-shell, steamed mussels and clams, roasted kasu , marinated Chilean sea bass , grilled Lake Superior whitefish . WINE PICKS: Selene Sauvignon Blanc, 1994; Rochioli Russian River Pinot Noir, 1993. FACTS: 544 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles; (213) 891-0900. Closed Saturday and Sunday lunch only. Dinner for two, food only, $50 to $100. Corkage $7 ($10 for wines on list). Valet parking. 30