High Steaks

The voices on my answering machine are pleading. “Help. I need a trendy restaurant for Saturday night. I’m coming to L.A., and it’s essential I take my friends to the right place.” Some say they don’t even care about the food; they just want to be plugged in to the restaurant of the moment. “Just tell me the address!” Last year it was Sunset Room and Linq. This year it’s Moomba in West Hollywood and, now, Balboa at the newly renovated the Grafton on Sunset.

In the past, hotel restaurants tended more to the hushed and formal (the Regent Beverly Wilshire, Hotel Bel-Air or the Peninsula Beverly Hills, to cite a few). But a new generation of boutique hotels has given rise to the era of the hip hotel restaurant. Hoteliers Ian Schrager (the Mondrian) and Andre Balazs (the Standard, Chateau Marmont) and the W hotel chain have jumped on the bandwagon. At these terminally trendy hotels, the line starts at the bar, home of the diabolically flavored martini, and then moves to the dining room, where movers and groovers try to cajole the host into giving them that choice corner table.

Like its Sunset Strip neighbors--the Standard and Mondrian hotels--the Grafton on Sunset is a design-conscious remake of an existing structure. When it came time to decide on a restaurant concept, the Grafton’s owners didn’t go Asian fusion or Caribbean, or even French bistro. They went with a steakhouse for the younger generation. And for that, they turned to the team behind Sushi Roku, the phenomenally successful trio of slick sushi restaurants in the Los Angeles area. The lesson: Style and good looks are huge components of appeal.

The owners hired Tag Front Architects to build and design the interior of Balboa. It had to have been one of its tougher assignments. The space is basically just a box, with low ceilings and no windows. But with the clever use of materials and areas defined by openwork screens of twigs woven loosely around stainless steel rods, it works. Metal mesh, hardwood veneers and light fixtures of brilliantly colored glass layered like a parfait add enough visual interest to distract from the pedestal tables barely large enough to hold the food. They’re updated coffee shop, made of zebrawood with tops bifurcated by an elegant metal seam. The way the tables are crammed in, the padded cocoa leather walls aren’t enough to tame the noise level. If you’re looking for buzz, though, Balboa is it.

The setting is the polar opposite of Morton’s of Chicago, Ruth’s Chris or the Palm. At such steakhouse icons, it’s all about size--those roomy Naugahyde booths, the white expanse of table real estate and, of course, the huge slabs of prime beef and gargantuan accompaniments. Even the steak knives are hefty weapons. But at Balboa, they’re sleek stainless steel Laguiole knives from France.

Though the design of this new breed of steakhouse belongs in the pages of Metropolitan Home or Wallpaper, the food does the tradition proud. Let’s cut straight to beef, which is prime, dry-aged Midwestern. The star of the lineup is the New York strip, aged an impressive 40 days and a marvel of flavor and texture--all 16 ounces of it. Ordered medium-rare with a char, it’s a deep rose all the way through and cuts like butter. The excellent rib-eye is more heavily marbled, and continuing the bone-in theme, the chef offers a bone-in filet, which would seem to be a contradiction in terms. Like most filets, tenderness is its biggest virtue. Though the kitchen offers optional sauces and “rubs” for your steak, beef this flavorful doesn’t need anything else.

Executive chef Gabriel E. Morales’ menu offers more than steaks. There’s a juicy veal chop with real taste, trumped one night by the special: a 2 1/2-inch Porterhouse of milk-fed veal from Canada. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a superb chop. It’s worth listening to the fish specials, too. Of course, Balboa always has live Maine lobster, but when has lobster in L.A. ever tasted as good as it does on the East Coast? There’s no reason to pay big bucks to be disappointed. Besides, our waiter tells us, John Dory had arrived a few hours earlier from New Zealand, and the chef is serving it in a lithe mushroom hash, with a thatch of shoestring potatoes.

Waiters decked out in white jackets embroidered with the name Balboa have a younger, hipper edge than the professionals at, say, The Grill. One guy in his small-framed glasses looks like a doctor in training writing out a prescription when he takes your order.

If you order a Caesar, the Caesar “specialist” will roll over his specially outfitted cart to prepare the salad table-side. Instead of one of those old-fashioned rosewood and silver affairs, this is a compact stainless steel number. Scooping a coddled egg from the shell, he adds it to the salad bowl, along with anchovy, garlic, Tabasco, Dijon mustard, extra-virgin olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano, to create a Caesar worthy of the name (keeping in mind, of course, that the original didn’t include the salted fish). Maine lobster salad is a heap of baby arugula and chunks of crustacean tossed in a vinaigrette laced with cumin and cilantro. Mussels steamed in Champagne and garlic, a special, come garnished with thick slices of toast marked from the grill, just what’s needed to soak up the briny, sweet juices. I could have passed on the muddy lobster bisque, though, and the tasteless beefsteak tomatoes.

Although you could order a boring twice-baked potato or garlic mashed potatoes, get the shoestrings fried with the skins on, spilling out of a paper cone. Or order the potato gratin or the delightful sweet potato variation on the theme. Whichever you try, it’s a stacked cake of thin-cut spuds that simply oozes butter. There’s also a gloriously decadent and very grown-up mac and cheese.

Balboa is not the hard-drinking steakhouse of the past. You won’t see many tumblers of Scotch here. Some people are sipping water. Or tea. But the bartender in the tiny corner bar keeps shaking for the born-again martini and cocktail crowd. One look at the wine list tells you that it’s a perfect occasion to drink some of the bold young California Cabs and Bordeaux from Balboa’s cellar, which also includes some fine Central Coast Pinot Noirs and Syrahs.

The biggest departure from the standard steakhouse format must be the desserts from pastry chef Annie Clemmons. Consider an individual fresh pineapple inside-out cake, chocolate peppermint creme brulee, chocolate pound cake filled with vanilla ice cream, or one of the better New York-style cheesecakes around--dense, garnished with halved grapes and grape coulis.

If you happen to ask for a doggie bag (and I’m not telling whether or not I did), the waiter brings a plain brown paper bag with twisted string handles--one for each of us. Now isn’t that discreet?

With the coming of Balboa, the ponderous steakhouse may be a thing of the past. Yes, you can marry cutting-edge design with an American classic, the well-marbled steak.

Balboa Restaurant & Lounge

8462 W. Sunset Blvd.

West Hollywood

(323) 650-8383

Cuisine: Steakhouse

Rating: **1/2

AMBIENCE: Urban steakhouse with hip design, pedestal tables and a young crowd.

SERVICE: Professional.

BEST DISHES: Caesar salad, Maine lobster salad, mussels in Champagne, New York strip, rib-eye, horseradish potato gratin, shoestring potatoes, mac and cheese, New York-style cheesecake, chocolate peppermint creme brulee. Appetizers, $5 to $18. Entrees, $16 to $40. Sides, $5 to $6. Corkage, $15.

WINE PICKS: 1999 Hitching Post Pinot Noir, Central Coast; 1999 Qupe Syrah “Bien Nacido Reserve,” Santa Barbara.

FACTS: Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. Valet parking, $6. Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.