Classic steak, Modernist house

THE way Wolfgang Puck tells it, one day he teasingly suggested to his friend Richard Meier that they do a restaurant together, never expecting that the Getty Center architect would really want to do it.

To Puck’s surprise, Meier signed on to design the chef’s proposed steakhouse in the Regent Beverly Wilshire -- the hotel where Hector Elizondo, playing the hotel manager, famously taught Julia Roberts’ hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold the art of fine dining in the 1990 film “Pretty Woman.” The problem was fitting the project into Meier’s schedule. But as of last week, Cut is finally here.

You’d never recognize the old place. Meier has given the restaurant and bar space a radical Modernist makeover with hardly an ornament to spare. French doors are wrapped in silvery mesh, the floors are pale and smooth. Textures are mostly glass and metal. Round and rectangular tables are widely, luxuriously spaced. And the chairs may just be the most comfortable restaurant seats ever. They even twirl, the better to see who is sitting where.

In the glassed-in kitchen, Spago’s executive chef, Lee Hefter, who collaborated with Puck on the steakhouse concept, watches every move in the kitchen led by chef de cuisine Ari Rosenson.

Let’s cut to the steak. The menu proposes dry-aged prime from Nebraska, wet-aged prime from Illinois and Kobe-style Wagyu beef from Idaho and Australia. But the piece de resistance is true Japanese Wagyu beef from Niigata prefecture that is just now being imported for the first time in any quantity.

Take a bite of the exquisitely marbled beef. No need to see its papers. This is the real thing, and it doesn’t come cheaply. At $20 an ounce, with a 6-ounce minimum, that’s a $120 steak. Yes, but it’s so rich, a few bites are completely satisfying. So, in theory, that 6-ounce steak would be enough for two or three to share a taste.

Fans of Midwestern beef should pounce on the 14-ounce New York sirloin. It’s dry-aged for 35 days, a superb piece of beef -- and $70. Expensive, but it also delivers everything you’d want in a steak.

Cut offers more than steak, though. You can also get a rotisserie duckling with lavender and thyme honey gastrique or sauteed French Dover sole a la meuniere, both for two, plus a handful of main courses for one, such as big-eye tuna steak or live Santa Barbara spot prawns.

Appetizers are equally smart, if a bit on the hefty side. That means lobster and crab Louis cocktail with a horseradish panna cotta underneath, maple-glazed pork belly, bone marrow flan with mushroom marmalade and a terrific warm veal tongue with crispy sweetbreads, artichokes and white beans in salsa verde.

Sides are extra, but all shareable. I loved the tempura onion rings, the creamed spinach with an organic fried egg on top and the sumptuous potato tarte Tatin stuffed with a leek and onion ragout.

The wine list offers lots of interesting drinking, and for a hotel restaurant, the prices aren’t over the top. And desserts tip toward the lighter side with a lovely Black Forest chocolate pudding cake with Garnet cherries.

Unfazed by all the new steakhouses opening left and right, Puck ups the ante with a smart, sophisticated version in a Meier-designed setting.

Those interested would be wise to secure a reservation. Quick.

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Cut

Where: Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel, 9500 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: 5:30 to 10 p.m. Mondays to Thursdays, 5:30 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Full bar. Valet parking, $8.

Price: Appetizers, $15 to $24; main courses, $32 to $48; steaks, $34 to $120; sides, $10; desserts, $14

Info: (310) 275-5200