Bringing old-school charm to Melrose

The party has moved from Palm Desert, which the restaurant Doug Arango’s called home for 13 years, to Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. The newcomer has the laid-back style of a country club where men in turtlenecks or blazers and Gucci loafers and women with serious pastel-tinted coifs sip classic cocktails and talk golf, boats and investments.

On a street where high design rules, this throwback to early ‘90s California cuisine with its dated country club look seems out of place. The minute you walk in the cherry-red door, not one, but two, maybe even three hosts -- any or all of them owners of this family-run restaurant -- spring to attention. Is that enthusiasm or what? I guess they don’t know bored indifference is the default in this part of town.

Diners are basking in the attention. If you’ve reserved ahead, chances are your table is ready and waiting. Otherwise, you can wait at the long curve of bar that looks onto the kitchen’s noisy exuberance. Steaks sizzle. Cheese bubbles on the pizzas.

Tables are already set with good stemware, all the better since the wide-ranging wine list offers lots of eclectic choices. And this I haven’t seen in ages: a pepper grinder on each table so you don’t have to endure some waiter rushing up before you’ve even tasted your food, waving a yard-long pepper grinder in your face. They don’t push the bottled water either, which is a relief.

The restaurant is owned by three siblings and a spouse -- Robert and Paula Evans, Julie Bennett and her husband, chef Christopher Bennett. Doug Arango’s, in fact, is named for Christopher Bennett’s late cousin, who urged the group to open a restaurant. Some of the waiters at the Palm Desert locale moved with the restaurant to Los Angeles. Guests are treated like members of the family, with a personal touch lacking in corporate or chain restaurants.

In the midst of trend-conscious West Hollywood, Doug Arango’s is an anomaly, with its retro decor and straightforward menu. But judging from the crowds, Angelenos must have been hankering after something just like this, a place where you won’t find any dried cherries in the meat loaf or white chocolate in the mole. The crowd is more old Gucci than new Gucci, more interested in spending time with friends over the dinner table than peering around to see if they can spot a vaguely familiar face. The menu is the menu, with usually just a couple of specials on any given night. It’s familiar California-Italian fare, well-prepared, but certainly not skirting the cutting edge.

The pizzas are reminiscent of Spago in the old days, halfway between thin-crusted Italian style and the billowy crusted pies that Wolfgang Puck made famous at Spago. The fact that the kitchen uses good ingredients is already a plus. I particularly like the sausage pizza made with crumbled sweet Italian sausage, roasted red peppers and Kalamata olives. The mushroom version is delicious, too, as is the one topped with Fontina cheese, chanterelles and leeks.

The grilled prawn appetizer is another good bet. The firm fat prawns served with their tails on have a nice char from the grill; they’re complemented by a white wine and caper sauce. The plate is garnished with warm, barely wilted radicchio splashed with vinegar. And if mussels are on the menu that night, don’t hesitate. The night I tried them they had been cooked in the pizza oven with white wine, garlic and lemon, and had plenty of those great juices to mop up with a piece of bread.

The kitchen pays more than lip service to the idea of soup. You won’t hear your waiter cite “no dairy, no meat” as the sole virtue of the insipid vegetable puree many restaurants feel they have to offer. Here, the soups are really worth trying. One night it might be a homemade split pea flecked with tiny pink cubes of ham, another a svelte celery-apple soup or a warming bowl of Manhattan clam chowder.

California is continually reinventing the concept of salad. Here, the lineup is led by Michaelmas salad, a combination of jewel-like beets, crisp hearts of romaine, walnuts and a soft, muted blue cheese in a raspberry vinaigrette heightened with the crimson beet juice.

A couple of appetizers fall flat. Roasted portabello mushroom and eggplant unfortunately has the look of a piece of shoe leather garnished with a sprig of rosemary. Zucchini pancakes with Scottish smoked salmon are small and brown as mice, an odd idea. The kitchen, it has to be said, is not big on presentation, which isn’t surprising, given the single large dining room’s fussy retro decor. I guess they’ve moved the restaurant from Palm Desert lock, stock and barrel, including the ugly wrought iron garden chairs that squawk like outraged parrots every time somebody sits down. The paintings are a bizarre mishmash of angels and figures from antiquity. Art, this is not. But the fireplace looks inviting in this weather.

It’s also the perfect time, maybe the only time in Los Angeles, when plates of hearty pastas sound appealing. Orecchiette, the “little ears” of southern Italian cuisine, are tossed in a distinctly northern Italian sauce of cream, prosciutto and peas. But it works. In a fettuccine dish, each noodle is coated in a creamy and incredibly rich Gorgonzola sauce. And butternut squash ravioli showered with chopped parsley looks very pretty sitting in a bright crimson pool of marinara sauce. The pasta itself is slender and supple, filled with a rather plain puree of squash.

Prime rib-eye is expertly cooked to a true medium rare, served with sauteed broccolini. The vegetables, though, are a bit greasy; someone has a heavy hand with the oil. Lamb chops are glazed with pomegranate molasses which brings out the sweet, meaty taste of the lamb. Sauteed calves liver is satisfying, too -- rosy at the center, and topped with slices of applewood-smoked bacon and caramelized onions. But for these chilly nights, nothing beats the shepherd’s pie of ground beef cooked with leeks and carrots beneath a thick coverlet of mashed potatoes. The steam billowing from the casserole is enough to keep the entire table warm.

Doug Arango’s strongest suit is the service. When waiters recite the specials, they also include the prices. When you order the veal chop, they’ll tell you it’s usually done medium to medium rare, how would you prefer it? They’re very precise.

When one of my guests didn’t appreciate his veal chop because it seemed more steamed than grilled, he simply didn’t eat it. But as soon as that plate was returned to the kitchen, the owner was right there, saying she noticed he didn’t eat his chop. Would he like something else? And when he declined, because it was too far into the meal, she not only took the item off the bill, she insisted on bringing a complimentary dessert.

With more than 350 selections, the wine list put together by wine director Robert Evans can be daunting for the average customer. But Evans has made it more user-friendly by including a page of quick picks at $45 and under, so you don’t have to wade through the entire list.

For dessert, go with the creme brulee suffused with lemon and perhaps a little too much rosemary. It’s large enough to share, which is a good thing, because the other desserts I tried were disappointing. Tarte Tatin, for example, is a little round thing with a cracker-like crust and caramel sauce that tastes as if it came from a bottle. Oh, well, who would have room anyway after eating two of these very generous courses?

Doug Arango’s clearly doesn’t need the trend seekers. This newcomer from Palm Desert is doing just fine, thank you, serving its conservative take on California cuisine to a crowd that’s happy to see something familiar on a menu and even happier to be treated like guests of the family.

*

Doug Arango’s

Rating: **

Location: 8826 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; (310) 278-3684; www.DougArangos.com.

Ambience: After 13 years in Palm Desert, this old-school restaurant with a menu of classic and slightly updated California fare has landed in West Hollywood. More old Gucci than new Gucci, the crowd is making its own party.

Service: Warm and personable, and absolutely professional.

Price: Appetizers, $6 to $14; main courses, $16 to $34; desserts, $7.

Best dishes: Pizzas, soups, grilled prawns, Santa Barbara mussels, Michaelmas salad, orecchiette with peas and prosciutto, butternut squash ravioli, rack of lamb, calves liver, shepherd’s pie, creme brulee.

Wine list: Remarkably wide-ranging with a user-friendly page of quick picks. Corkage $20.

Best table: The one in front of the fireplace.

Details: Open Monday through Thursday, 6 to 10:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6 to 11 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking, $4.50.

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.