Italian, After a Fashion

From the moment it reopened two months ago, the mondrian became the rendezvous of choice for the fashion and film crowds, diehard trendoids and the casually curious intent on seeing firsthand the hotel’s startling transformation. The redesign is whimsical, a bit impractical but full of fun, with enough shifts of scale and perspective to make you feel like Alice in Wonderland. Two immense mahogany doors, the hotel’s only “signage,” are set like free-standing sculptures in front of the drive. Inside, the wide-open lobby looks like a white stage set just waiting for the hyper-stylish to stroll across and take a seat on the large tree trunk bench or one of the mismatched chairs draped in tasseled shawls.

French designer Philippe Starck--who also decorated the hip Delano in Miami, among others of New York hotelier Ian Schrager’s empire--has played some enchanting tricks with light here at Schrager’s Mondrian. A filigreed carpet of light stretches across the foyer, from the elevators and out the front door. Projections of the letters W and M mark the respective restrooms, each coyly furnished with a chalkboard and a supply of colored chalk. And rows of votive candles snake down the lobby bar’s centerpiece, a 40-foot-long alabaster table where guests can gather and perch on metal and twig stools.

No small attraction either is Coco Pazzo Los Angeles, the Mondrian’s high-profile, high-priced Italian restaurant. On a Saturday night, when we arrive for dinner, there’s a velvet rope across the hotel entrance and a crowd pressed against it. “Only hotel guests and people with reservations for dinner can come in,” proclaims a burly employee with a clipboard. When we get close enough to give our name, we’re escorted inside as he calls out, “Coco Pazzo! Coco

Pazzo!” to clear the way.

The restaurant, which occupies a long, narrow space with a spectacular view at its far end, is unabashedly glamorous. With gray wainscoting and a low, slanted roof, it’s reminiscent of a whitewashed New England beach cottage. The art is a series of black-and-white photos. Chairs are slip covered in sumptuous white leather with a sexy slash of zipper down the back.

The outdoor dining terrace, tables set beneath an allee of graceful ficus trees in oversized flower pots, is sure to be the most coveted reservation come warmer weather. Flowering plants perfume the air, and wine bottles with their bottoms cut out and little lights inside are strung through the trees.

The fourth Coco Pazzo (“crazy chef”) from Tuscan-born New York restaurateur Pino Luongo, Coco Pazzo comes with New York attitude as well: The dining room is roped off behind the hostess. It’s difficult to land a reservation. And when you call, the voice on the other end may sound more pleased than regretful when you can’t get in till 10 p.m. Or sometime next week.

Despite tables that are hard-to-get, however, few of this Coco Pazzo’s dishes make much of an impression. Over several meals, I didn’t eat anything that would prompt me to call friends and rush back, especially at these prices. If you order carefully, though, you shouldn’t be too disappointed.

For appetizers, oval slices of “homemade” mozzarella taste milky and fresh and are accompanied by delightfully crunchy giardinera of pink and white pearl onions and roasted peppers marinated in vinegar. The cannellini bean soup, flavored with prosciutto and laced with whole beans, is earthy and delicious. There’s also a nice salad of pale artichokes scented with marjoram and topped with shavings of good Parmesan cheese.

Ever-fashionable tuna tartare as it’s made here is a dish you’ll either love or hate. It’s layered with a vinegary eggplant relish that overwhelms the delicate raw tuna. Beef carpaccio is paper-thin slices of excellent raw beef. But garnishing it with a topknot of spaghetti squash doused with truffle oil is a terrible idea. So is splashing the powerfully aromatic oil over the otherwise appealing flat round of foccacia stuffed with robiola cheese.

Happily, someone in the kitchen has a sure hand with pasta. It’s expertly prepared whenever I order it. Spaghetti tossed with rape, or bitter broccoli greens, that’s been cooked with a little garlic and oil is a dish from the south of Italy that deserves to be better known. Another good choice is the handmade garganelli, squares of pasta rolled on the diagonal to form tubes, sauced with nuggets of rich butternut squash and sauteed chanterelle and shiitake mushrooms. Risotto, a different one each night, is noteworthy, too: My salmon risotto is superb, each grain of aldente rice bathed in fragrant broth.

Main courses are decidedly mixed. The first time I try fegato Coco Pazzo, it’s wonderful: thin slices of calves’ liver cooked to a rosy pink and served with caramelized shallots and those pink and white pearl onions. On my next visit, the liver is leathery and overcooked. Fat lamb chops in a dark balsamic sauce are fine and worth ordering for the braised Roman-style artichokes that accompany them. But a roasted leg of lamb special the same night consists of dried-out slabs of tasteless meat that could easily have been anything but lamb. Whole roasted poussin infused with rosemary is as limp as Rosti’s warmed-up chickens. The silvery whole roasted sea bass looks beautiful, but once it’s fileted, there’s only a small pile of flaky white fish scented with lemon leaves. It’s a lean, healthful entree, but for $32, I could eat something astonishing somewhere else.

The biggest disappointment is Tuscany’s famous bistecca alla fiorentina. The real thing is a massive T-bone of the region’s extraordinary and increasingly rare Chianina beef, sold by weight because it’s so expensive and charred blood-rare over charcoal. At the very least, I expect a glorious cut of beef for two for $42. What I get is a rib steak already sliced off the bone and tricked up with an herb-infused oil to disguise just how little flavor the meat has. The so-called Tuscan fries look an awful lot like ordinary French fries, with the inexplicable addition of blisteringly hot fried jalapenos. A special touch just for Los Angeles?

It’s hard not to be annoyed by Coco Pazzo’s wine list. Prices are as high as those in New York. And compared to Valentino or Campanile, the selection of Italian wines is not even particularly good. There are famous names, but few of the exciting wines from young, up-and-coming producers. And some of the most expensive wines, such as the $300 Barolo from Giovanni Conterno’s famous Monfortino vineyard and the $165 Cabernet “Darmagi” from Barbaresco producer Angelo Gaja, are listed without vintages!

Desserts are not as accomplished or as special as they should be for $9. Chestnut tartufo might make a fine finale if the chestnut gelato “truffle,” covered in brittle bittersweet chocolate, weren’t so sweet. Pistachio torte, served with a scoop of lemon custard ice cream and a syrup exotically perfumed with cardamom, saffron and rosemary, tastes as though it’s been soaked in the syrup. An untraditional panna cotta, flavored with pumpkin, is so stiff with gelatin that it misses the whole point of Piedmont’s “cooked cream,” which is its ethereal texture.

Foodwise, this New York import is not even close to being in the same league with Los Angeles’ best Italian restaurants. The often-inept service isn’t setting any standards either. When dining here, the wisest strategy is to order cautiously, sip your wine slowly and skip dessert.

Still, Coco Pazzo has something hard to find in this city right now: a thrilling setting. So go ahead. Experience the new Mondrian and its new restaurant, where the view and the people-watching are fabulous. And, oh, make that reservation weeks ahead.

Coco Pazzo Los Angeles in the Mondrian, 8440 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; (213) 848-6000. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Dinner for two, food only, $72 to $105. Valet parking $5 with validation.