STYLE / RESTAURANTS : WHAT’S FOOD GOT TO DO WITH IT?

The friends and acquaintances who make up my informal eating brigade are an opinionated bunch, ever ready to argue, endlessly, the virtues--or shortcomings--of just about any L.A. restaurant. But mention the Ivy, and the response is universal: “I love the Ivy!” Especially my friend C, a bona fide party girl, who nurses fond memories of the Robertson Boulevard hot spot. She has been dying to go back. What better place to show off her new fire-engine red Versace pantsuit? “Did you see ‘Get Shorty’ yet? Danny DeVito takes this meeting at the Ivy!” she laughs. “He orders all this food and leaves before it arrives.” What a waste, I think. But that was then.

C orders with confidence. “A Cajun Bloody Mary. And the Louisiana black pepper shrimp--I’ve got to have that. Oh, and the Maui onion rings--they’re famous. Could we have some stone crabs and the crab cakes, too?” she pleads. The girl has a prodigious appetite.

First come the famous onion rings, but they’re having an off night. Half the batter has slipped right off, and there’s a layer of oily crumbs underneath. A bite or two, and everybody’s mouth feels coated with grease. But the crab cakes are decent, packed with good fresh crab meat and fried to crunchy brown pellets. The stone crab claws aren’t overcooked. And the plump little pizza topped with fresh shrimp, crisped pancetta and a blanket of fontina is not half-bad, we gamely decide.

But then C’s black pepper shrimp arrive: an oversized plate of white rice ringed with flaccid shrimp and a moat of what looks like crankcase oil. Gingerly, she dips her fork in and takes a bite. Her face falls. The sauce tastes something like blackstrap molasses laced with black pepper and onions, and it completely overwhelms what little flavor the overcooked shrimp have. C, who will eat anything, won’t eat this. She sends it back and asks for the plainer mesquite-grilled shrimp instead.

Meanwhile, we eat the fried chicken, two enormous breasts in a shaggy brown coating that are woefully dried out. The mashed potatoes are watery and could use a dose of butter; the Brussels sprouts have been boiled to within an inch of their lives. A massive slab of meatloaf is bland and boring. Fish and chips with shrimp, scallops and rock cod are mediocre, too, heavily battered and as greasy as cheap London takeout. Blackened Cajun prime rib is grilled so far past the requested rare that there’s hardly any juice left in the meat and very little taste beyond the heat of the Cajun spices.

Then, finally, C’s new order of grilled Louisiana shrimp arrives. She takes one bite of the leathery pink curls and puts her fork down. “I’m embarrassed that I ever liked this place!,” she wails. “Could it be that the food was better before? Or has my taste changed? You know what? Maybe I never paid all that much attention to the food. There was always too much else going on.”

And there is. The phone is ringing off the hook. Rolls-Royces, Mercedes-Benzes and Jags are lined up at the curb. And is that Kiefer Sutherland bounding up the steps? Plus, all the ambience: an extravaganza of flowered chintz cushions, sun-faded straw hats, somebody’s old chairs hanging on the wall, a crooked sideboard stacked with vintage mixing bowls and spongeware jugs. It’s all so charming--that is, if you’re susceptible to that sort of thing, the accumulated detritus of a life that was never lived.

But whose homey little restaurant are we dining in anyway? Where is the animating personality, the person who makes everybody feel welcome and ensures that they all have a good time? It’s definitely not our waiter. He, like his colleagues, seems primed to turn the tables, snatching away plates mid-sentence, mid-meal, pouring the wine fast and furiously. Off with this bottle, on with the next. (By the way, the Ivy does not allow patrons to bring in a bottle of fine wine. Considering its, overpriced wine list, for shame.) And what about all that food that goes sailing back to the kitchen? Does anybody care that nobody seems to finish it--at the very least to inquire if anything might be wrong with it? The fact that you don’t eat apparently isn’t cause for alarm here.

One day at lunch, which is a milky corn chowder spiked with chile and a surprisingly decent and amazingly huge grilled vegetable salad with asparagus, zucchini and shredded lime chicken, I ask the waiter: “You mean to tell me those thin models come here and scarf up these huge plates of food?” “Well, not actually,” he says. “They order salad without avocado and dressing on the side and just kind of pick at it.”

Food is simply not the point at the Ivy--or at its close cousin, Ivy at the Shore, where the bar is bursting at the seams. The cooking at both restaurants has about as much personality as a chain restaurant’s. But who needs great food (even if you are paying $21.75 for a plate, however large, of gummy homemade spaghetti in tomato and basil sauce) when you can bask in the light of all those stars? Price of admission? Twenty dollars per person minimum table service, the menu dictates.

When you drive by on Robertson and see all the attractive people sitting at tables along the white picket fence in front, you want to stop and join them. They’re drinking those pretty strawberry daiquiris garnished with whole berries and dining off those wonderful handpainted terra-cotta plates. They’ve got ruffled cushions tucked behind their backs and lovely potted violets on the table. Women in funky hats and men in sneakers and Armani are distractedly dipping their spoons into an old-fashioned ice cream sundae or sipping cappuccino from cups so large that they could easily hold a small lake. It all looks like something from the pages of Elle or Country Life.

But still there’s my friend J. He expects to eat good food when he goes out and thinks that’s what restaurants are for, stars notwithstanding. One afternoon at the Ivy, as he forlornly nibbles a limp French fry, he suddenly nudges me. “Hey, isn’t that Anjelica Huston over there?” We look discreetly (not everybody at the same time) and, yes, it was. J shakes his head sadly and pushes away his plate. “Anjelica Huston. Of all people. I thought she’d have better taste.”

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THE IVY

CUISINE: American. AMBIENCE: Homey tchotchke- and star-filled rooms. BEST DISHES: Stone crab, corn chowder, pizza with Louisiana shrimp, grilled vegetable salad with lime chicken. WINE PICK: Marimar Torres Estate Chardonnay, 1992; FACTS: 113 N. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 274-8303; and 1541 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, (310) 393-3113. Open daily for lunch and dinner; brunch on Sundays. Dinner for two, food only, $75 to $107. No corkage because bringing your own wine is not permitted. Valet parking.