If you get through the door

AFTER at least three makeovers in the last few years, always as some form of club-slashrestaurant-slash-lounge, the space at the southwest corner of La Cienega and Melrose Place just came out as Republic, with a capital R.

It didn’t take them long to adopt the attitude of hot restaurant of the moment. Was I shocked when, just hours before we were due to arrive for an 8 p.m. reservation (made under a friend’s name), someone left a message informing us that the person who took our reservation “wasn’t actually looking at the book” when they did so? And, as a consequence, the restaurant would only be able to take us at 6 or 10:30 p.m.?

“Nice try,” my co-conspirator said, when he called them back. “Has someone more important shown up?” Hems and haws from the other end of the line. By the time my friend was through, he’d managed to shame the person on the other end of the line into coughing up a 9:30 p.m. reservation, which he then negotiated to a more reasonable 9 p.m.

When we arrived in front of the imposing structure, now faced in glass bricks, a Pamela Anderson look-alike was mincing down the steps. We expected a line at the door, but there wasn’t one. The velvet rope sat to the side, unused. Still, there was a gentleman checking off reservations on a clipboard before he allowed guests to approach the door, which was opened by another gentleman wearing black leather gloves.

It was hardly a mob scene inside either, so the whole reservation thing seemed like a ruse to create buzz. Never mind. The place is swell, with a posh bar with plenty of comfy seats and a truly glamorous dining room, with soaring ceilings and two waterfalls slithering down the walls on either side of a stark modern fireplace. Overhead, lamps trimmed in yards of slinky fringe add a note of whimsy. A tall curved banquette runs along one wall, and tables are widely and luxuriously spaced.

If only we’d known. We would have dressed up for the part. Meanwhile, there are cocktails to order.

And dinner. Republic is billed as an updated steakhouse and, though the steaks and chops aren’t anything unusual, some of the first courses are.

For one thing, they’re serving marinated baby lamb chops as an appetizer. (Talk about carnivore overkill.) The BBQ kurobuta pork “lollipops,” though, are just offbeat enough to work; they’re basically morsels of succulent barbecued pork on a stick served with a spicy slaw. There’s also a surf ‘n’ turf tartare: big-eye tuna tartare with avocado, caviar and ponzu, and a classic prime filet of beef tartare, sitting side by side.

Main courses go for the wildly minimal, as in grilled vegetables with tofu steak or a tasting of barbecue that includes pork belly, pulled pork and pork loin on one plate. Leave your car with the valet and jog home.

Chef Gabe Morales was the opening chef at Boa Steakhouse at the Grafton on Sunset, so he knows what to do with a piece of dry-aged beef. The beefsteaks are better than those served at most of the trendy new steakhouses; I can say that much. But the veal porterhouse on the menu at $42 outshines any of the steaks I tried that night.

Desserts follow the trend for ice cream cookie sandwiches, ye olde chocolate souffle and New York cheesecake, this one “made by a real New Yorker.” Go figure.

With a drop-dead room quiet enough for conversation and a menu that’s familiar but offers a little something new, Republic just may succeed where the other places at this address didn’t. Que sera, sera.

*

Republic

Where: 650 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood

When: Dinner, 6 to 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, 6 to 11:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Full bar. Valet parking.

Cost: Appetizers, $14 to $19; salads, $12 to $18; main courses, $23 to $39; sides, $7; desserts, $6 to $12

Info: (310) 360-7070, www.therepublicla.com