Sophisticated lady

AN actor friend from the East Coast told me some years ago about driving down Sunset Boulevard -- Route 66 -- when he first came west and saw Sunset Towers looming in the distance. There! I’m going to live there, he decided, as he cruised past the landmark Art Deco building. Alas, his happy ending was not to be. The 1929 building, the Sunset Strip’s first high rise with, count ‘em, 13 stories, was turned into a hotel in 1987. My friend did eventually spend a couple of weekends at the Argyle, reveling in the history of the Art Deco building that Errol Flynn, Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, among others, once called home.

Now the historic hotel has a new owner. New York hotelier Jeff Klein is bent on restoring the grande dame’s luster, banking on nostalgia to make the Argyle a player once again. Scenes from the 1992 film “The Player,” in fact, were filmed at the hotel’s pool overlooking the city lights.

After trying, unsuccessfully, to lure Tom Colicchio of Craft in New York or some other high profile chef to create a new restaurant at the Argyle, Klein finally decided to go ahead and install his own Tower Bar and restaurant in the rooms where mobster Bugsy Siegel once lived. In Hollywood, such a pedigree, however tenuous, is like fairy dust, conjuring up the glamour of a bygone era, the classic Hollywood of vamps with platinum finger-waved hair in bias satin gowns or swains with smoldering, kohl-rimmed eyes in beautifully cut tuxedos.

The Tower Bar’s design helps the fantasy along with a retro-Moderne take on the club bar. Walls are covered in warm wood. Lamps with pleated fabric shades glow amber. And cozy tables are tucked into alcoves with windows looking onto the city below. The bar is small and snug, with just a handful of stools, and at the baby grand, Page Cavanaugh, who was already on the scene in the ‘40s (he had his own trio and accompanied Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, among others), plays some superb piano, doing his bit to pay tribute to the past.

The effect is a sophisticated, understated backdrop for a drink at the bar, a romantic dinner for two or a night out with friends. I love the contrast too, of the eclectic crowd -- actors and agents, writers and stockbrokers, young and old -- with the glamour shots framed on the walls. Only a few are recognizable stars. The majority are black-and-white stills from the ‘30s and ‘40s, head shots, basically, of that era’s hopefuls, kids who jumped off the Greyhound bus, destination Hollywood. There they are more than half a century later, finger-waved, vamping for the camera.

Initially, Tower Bar’s menu, meant to be retro, read instead as square and terribly boring. It was hard to find something you really wanted to order. But after a change of chef, the menu is much more appealing. Klein brought in Piero Morovich, an Italian chef who cooked at Ammo for six years. I liked his cooking there, but this is more polished in presentation. He seems to be having fun doing something more uptown.

*

Off to a good start

WHETHER you’re just bopping in for a drink or staying for dinner, start with a grilled pizza. They’ve been doing it in New York and Vegas, but not here, till now, to my knowledge. The only difference from a conventional pizza is that the crust is crisper and more cracker-like; here it’s served as two rectangles cut from a larger slab. It’s perfect for two, but you can easily cut each in half to make an appetizer for four to share.

One features silky smoked salmon scribbled with creme fraiche and topped with thinly sliced red onions and sticky rich salmon eggs. Good as it is, it may just be trumped by the bufala mozzarella and fontina version, embellished with marinated baby artichokes, basil and cherry tomatoes -- peeled, I swear, so they just pop cool tomato flavor in your mouth.

Morovich is putting some effort into the daily soups too. I can imagine arriving back at the hotel after driving all over L.A., and falling on a bowl of ochre-colored tomato soup made with golden heirloom tomatoes. The taste is almost fruity, but then tomato is a fruit. At any rate, it’s the best tomato soup I’ve had in ages.

The restaurant is, if anything, overstaffed. Dimitri Dimitrov, the fabled maitre d’ who ruled the dining room at Diaghilev for many years, never misses a detail. He’s right there, shifting the silverware or wineglasses to make room for the next flight of dishes. Waiters and runners hover in the background.

Salads, such as butter lettuce tossed in a lemon shallot vinaigrette, are fresh and pretty. Morovich makes more elaborate ones too. One I like is made with Little Gem lettuce, an heirloom romaine in miniature, pretty much the perfect lettuce. I snatch it up whenever I can find it at the farmers market, but that’s not often. Here Morovich strews the crunchy leaves with slices of Humboldt Fog goat cheese and avocado, pink grapefruit segments and toasted hazelnuts. Very nice stuff and definitely nothing like the usual hotel fare.

Just as I’m breaking open the poached egg on top of my potato blini one night, I hear someone at a table to my left begin a story, “OK, we’re in St. Tropez ... “ -- must be an agent-in-training. Gales of laughter follow his story. Meanwhile, the egg against the tender blini is wonderful, but the quality of the caviar should be better.

Morovich is Italian and so, of course, he’s got to have something Italian on his contemporary American menu. Recently, I discovered his gnocchi. They look like a plate of slightly undersized golf balls, flecked with peppery arugula leaves and speck, a smoky mountain-cured ham. Sauced in Parmigiano-Reggiano, they’re delicious. No spaghetti or fettuccine, but there is the chef’s house-made ravioli, big floppy squares the size of paperbacks, stuffed with beet greens and spinach, ricotta and fines herbes, in a loose tomato sauce dotted with “skinless” cherry tomatoes and asparagus tips. His risotto, now made with mixed mushrooms, tastes more like something a French chef would whip up, its taste is so rich, but each grain of rice is properly al dente.

*

Fish special

MAIN courses tend to be much more uneven. I did have a couple of good fish dishes. One night the special is sturgeon wrapped in crisped prosciutto. Inside, the fish is moist (for sturgeon) and firm. It’s a wonderful fish, one I wish would show up on menus more often. But the horseradish crust on top of a char filet tastes like sawdust. Roasted monkfish is awfully rich too, in a scampi sauce dotted with chanterelles and accompanied by lobster fettuccine.

And what was that beautiful double-cut Kurobuta pork chop doing under fat wedges of caramelized plum so sweet they could have been plucked from a pie? And in a sauce that could have stood in for pancake syrup? Fortunately, the roasted organic lemon chicken tastes simply of lemon. Steak frites, though, are very nice. Shoestring fries are heaped into a paper cone inside a tiny copper saucepot. And the steak, a New York strip, is topped with a pat of compound herb butter.

The wine list is just one page, and heavy on the Champagne, which ranges from $62 for a Roederer Estate sparkling wine to $425 for the 1997 Cristal. At least a dozen wines are available by the glass, including a Riesling from Domaine Ostertag in Alsace. Another favorite of mine is Domaine des Baumard Savennieres from the Loire Valley.

Desserts from pastry chef Miho Travi are something to look forward to, like her heirloom peach tart, which is really a round financier almond cake suffused with the taste of bitter almond and crowned with deep-flavored yellow peaches. There’s a fragile napoleon layered with a tender vanilla cream and delicious summer berries and served with a lovely rose-scented strawberry sorbet. She makes magic too, with her panna cotta freckled with vanilla bean, escorting a plum compote. Ice cream sundae comes with a flotilla of fixings, individual ramekins of fudge and caramel sauces, whipped cream, crumbled brownies and sugared almonds. And her plate of cookies will keep the whole table busy nibbling freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, gingery butter cookies, the tiniest caramels and fruit jellies, and finally, madeleines warm from the oven.

Who would have thought you could find such civilized comforts on the Sunset Strip? Clearly, it’s not just for kids anymore.

*

Tower Bar

Rating: **

Location: Argyle Hotel, 8358 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; (323) 848-6677.

Ambience: Chic hotel lounge and restaurant with walls wrapped in wood, a resident pianist and mesmerizing views east over Hollywood from the landmark Argyle hotel.

Service: Professional and courteous; perhaps overstaffed.

Price: Appetizers, $10 to $25; grilled pizza, $15 to $17; pasta and risotto, $18 to $21; main courses, $22 to $39; desserts, $8.

Best dishes: Grilled pizzas, salmon tartare, potato blini, gnocchi, risotto with forest mushrooms, organic lemon chicken, steak frites, peach tart, panna cotta, ice cream sundae.

Wine list: Just one page, but some interesting choices. Corkage, $15.

Best table: One of the tables next to a window in the alcove.

Details: Open for cocktails at 5:30 p.m Monday to Saturday; dinner 6 to 11 p.m. Monday to Thursday; 6 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. Valet parking at the hotel.

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.