Beefing up the choices

Even at Peter Luger’s steak house, the venerable Brooklyn institution famous for its silky, well-aged Porterhouse, you can’t eat anything but the steak. The side dishes are dismal, just as they are at most American steakhouses, based on some antiquated idea of chophouse cooking. Though new steakhouses are opening left and right, most keep plodding steadily down the same path, not daring to tinker with the tried-and-true formula.

Enter Joachim Splichal, founder of Patina and a slew of more casual French-California restaurants. One thing Splichal has learned is that Angelenos want choices, the more, the merrier. And at Nick & Stef’s, his new downtown steakhouse named for twin sons Nicolas and Stephane, he’s giving it to them: 12 starters and salads, 12 vegetables, a dozen items from the grill and a choice of 12 sauces with which to doctor them. Potatoes? Another dozen, ranging from garlic chive mashed spuds to potato gratin to sweet potato fries with ginger. It’s enough to make a steakhouse aficionado giddy.

The focus, though, is definitely the beef. There’s a glassed-in steak-aging room with row after row of huge cuts of beef, each tagged with its weight. Next to it is the steak-cutting area, where a marble plaque spells out the cuts available.

Using polished wood panels tinted an Italianate yellow and shaped like aerodynamic wings, Harvard-trained designer Hagy Belzberg has carved a sleek dining area at the site of the former Stepps in the Wells Fargo Center on South Hope Street. The best seats are the cozy booths. As for the expensive-looking chairs, did anyone actually try them out before ordering them? They tend to pitch you forward at an awkward angle.

Despite its appealing concept, the restaurant needs to work on executing the menu consistently and to revise a handful of dishes. In a perfect world, every appetizer should be as delicious as the chilled shellfish platter. A square platter for two arrives on ice, heaped with eight huge, meaty shrimp, a scattering of Kumamoto and Coromandel oysters on the half shell, tiny sweet clams in the shell and a ripsnorting cocktail sauce or, if you like, a red wine mignonette. As for other appetizers, iceberg lettuce--which is making something of a comeback--is cloaked in a dressing made with that excellent American blue cheese, Maytag. Steak tartare is nicely seasoned but heavy on the dressing. The raw beef seems to be hand chopped, but not quite enough from the way it clumps together. Plus it needs more thin croutons to accommodate all that tartare.

Caesar salad is made table-side. The dressing is sharp with garlic, as it should be. It’s odd, however, for the waiter to ask if anyone wants Parmesan sprinkled over the finished salad, instead of tossing everything together. Thick slices of beefsteak tomatoes are delicious with shaved red onions and wild watercress, a nice variation on the traditional. But it’s back to the kitchen for those beer-battered onion rings: they’re too doughy and greasy.

The main courses improved greatly during my visits. (I suspect the steakhouse was so unexpectedly busy in the early days that the kitchen had trouble coming up with enough well-aged beef.) Cooking is precise, and everything arrives pretty much as ordered. New York strip is dense in texture, less juicy than some of the other cuts. The rib-eye has a marvelous flavor. The Porterhouse, though, should be cut thicker; mine is just a little over half an inch. Steaks have to be thick to retain juices and provide that wonderful contrast between the charred exterior and the rare meat. The surprise is the filet mignon. This normally bland cut may be the most flavorful steak in the house.

If you’re not into beef, go for the lamb chops. Grilled over fruitwood, they have an ineffably smoky edge that marries well with the mild taste of lamb. Also try the double-cut pork chop. It’s super-thick, yet cooked through without being dried out. And the lobster is very nice indeed. Grilled over that same subtle fruitwood, it’s faintly smoky, perfectly cooked, with nice big claws. Pay attention to the specials, too: one

night it’s a wonderful prime rib chop--charred rare, very juicy, with terrific flavor.

The sides are the weakest items. Oven-roasted tomato with Parmesan is gushy and warm and not that interesting. Beets are dressed in a horseradish cream so laden with the grated root that diners who take a big bite are reduced to waving their arms helplessly until their eyes stop tearing. A potato horseradish cake tastes pasty. Shoestring fries seem more like a collection of grated bits of potato fried to a crisp. Mashed potatoes are better than most of the other potato ideas, with the exception of the pommes Maxim--thin rounds of potato cooked in clarified butter to form a crisp galette.

As for service, a bevy of junior managers checks up on tables. On a slow night, the host tries to stick us with the worst table, until we ask for a spot nearer the back of the room. Servers are invariably professional, though.

A glassed-in wine cellar showcases double magnums and larger bottles of some of California’s most lauded Cabernet Sauvignons. Naturally, the wine list is strong on high-end California Chardonnays and Cabernets. For those with less-prodigious appetites and budgets, there are plenty of mid-level California Cabs, and for the more adventurous, Nick and Stef’s has inky Rh0ne-style wines from California’s intrepid Rh0ne Rangers. Those diners who have old Bordeaux waiting for the right occasion should note that the corkage fee is a sensible $10.

Desserts seem like afterthoughts and are, for the most part, lackluster. Coconut cream pie has an odd Jell-O-like texture. Pecan pie has far too much filling in proportion to the nuts, but it flaunts a wicked bourbon sauce. An apple blueberry crumble features an underbaked pastry crust, making me wonder if it’s supposed to be a cobbler. The cheesecake, though, is fluffier than most.

Once again, Splichal has taken a chance on downtown (his Cafe Pinot opened in 1995), and if the crowds are any measure, Nick & Stef’s should do just fine. The staff has worked hard to bring both the front and the back of the house into line, improving instead of sliding back once the thrill of the opening few weeks faded. The kitchen needs to work on those sides, though. It would be a shame if diners ended up retreating back to the realm of the baked potato.

*

AMBIENCE: Handsome downtown steakhouse with large bar, outdoor eating area, private dining rooms and glassed-in aging room for beef. SERVICE: Mostly good. BEST DISHES: Oysters, chilled shellfish platter, Caesar salad, iceberg lettuce with Maytag blue cheese dressing, dry-aged New York strip, dry-aged rib-eye, double-cut pork chop, lamb loin chops, grilled Maine lobster. Appetizers, $6 to $15; main courses, $19 to $32; lobster at market price; sides, $4 to $10. Corkage, $10. wine PICKs: 1997 Babcock “Black Label Cuvee” Syrah, Santa Ynez Valley; 1996 Stags’ Leap Winery Petite Sirah, Napa Valley. FACTS: Dinner Monday through Saturday; lunch weekdays. Valet parking available.

*

Nick & Stef’s Steakhouse

330 S. Hope St., Wells Fargo Building, Downtown Los Angeles,

(213) 680-0330

Cuisine: American

Rating: **