A walk that offers a lot of eye candy

THE downtown Los Angeles gallery scene may not have the smooth industrial polish of Culver City or the fresh-out-of-art-school hipness of Chinatown, but it’s enthusiastic, warm and utterly L.A.: part Hollywood glitter, part Bukowski-style outsider.

The area’s showcase event is the monthly Downtown Art Walk. On the second Thursday evening, downtown’s art galleries, many on or around 5th Street between Broadway and Los Angeles Street, host roving packs of loft dwellers and art connoisseurs who drain Styrofoam cups of Trader Joe’s-bought wine. They pay only a modicum of attention to the art, but they lend downtown a much-needed sense of bustle and nightlife. Perfumed revelers elbow through stalled crowds on Main Street to the quaint sounds of a street musician’s accordion.

At Pharmaka Gallery, the walls are packed with small canvases, which have the effect of alienating the eye from all of them. The space is pleasingly unfinished: There’s broken tile on the floor and raw, peeling bits of wall near the ceiling. Yet the crowd is chichi -- think expensive sparkly eyeglasses and designer knee-high boots.

Across the street is Bert Green Fine Art, Pharmaka’s cool older sister with Chelsea-approved gallery aesthetics. Peter Romberg’s disturbing paintings of children’s bodies wracked by scoliosis and other maladies force the viewer into a relationship with only the deformed figures -- the faces are obscured by a bright-colored dot. Another Romberg painting, “Progress,” shows two rats running in a wheel, an unsubtle commentary delivered simply.

The Downtown Poet Walk, the Art Walk’s literary offshoot, has crowded around poet and commercial real-estate broker Ed Rosenthal. In Noo Yorkese, he reads a poem he wrote in 1998 to Tom Gilmore, developer and unofficial mayor of downtown, who has dropped by El Nopal Press to listen with a half-smile. The gist of the poem? Pay up, Gilmore.

New independent bookstore Metropolis Books intrigues with a selection of fiction emphasizing African American authors, science fiction and suspense. Lighted by florescent panels, Metropolis has the kind of new-store sparkle that works well for Sephora but not so much here. The rug needs to be a little nattier, the shelves a bit dusty, the lighting much softer. And where’s the bookstore cat?

One of the earliest beacons of downtown’s revitalization is R23, a Japanese restaurant hidden in a back alley of the warehouse district. Architect Frank Gehry’s corrugated cardboard chairs have held up well, but like the exposed brick walls, they only reinforce R23’s sense of datedness. With Kenny G’s soprano sax oozing out of the speakers, it seems likely Julian Schnabel and some army of shoulder-padded art dealers will come in at any minute. But at least the sushi is au courant: Fresh, marbled slabs of deep-red tuna over glistening rice provide a light but satisfying finish.

margaret.wappler@latimes.com

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The tab

Dinner $50.22

Where: R23, 923 E. 2nd St., L.A. (213) 687-7178. Plum and spicy tuna rolls, miso soup, sushi and sashimi, Kirin Ichiban beer and tip.

The walk free

Where: Pharmaka Gallery, 101 W. 5th St.; Bert Green Fine Art, 102 W. 5th St.; El Nopal Press, 109 W. 5th St.; Metropolis Books, 440 S. Main St. www.downtownartwalk.com. (213) 842-8574. The walk is free, but if you indulge in a glass of wine, it’s a good idea to tip $1.

Total $50.22