Presto! La Scala Changes : The once-snooty establishment has tasted democracy and found it a fine way to bring in business

La Scala and Boutique, 410 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills. (213) 275-0579. Open for lunch and dinner, Monday-Saturday. Full bar. Valet parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $35-$60.

I was never a fan of the old La Scala. This may have something to do with the fact that I went there the first time with an editor who spent most of the meal telling me how much I reminded him of his first wife and regaling me with wonderful stories of their travels together. Halfway through the meal, I suddenly remembered how much he was supposed to have disliked his first wife. The meal went downhill from there.

Or it may have more to do with the fact that every time I ate there I got snooty service and mediocre food. That was bad enough. But what was worse was watching the waiters fawn over the celebrities at the next table while serving them food that looked utterly delicious. La Scala seemed to be two restaurants--and I was always in the wrong one.

The new La Scala, however, is something else entirely. When the rent at the old one went up, owner Jean Leon decamped to smaller and less formal quarters. But he did more than that. This is a man who has been catering to L.A. eaters for quite some time; he was the first restaurateur to recognize that people here weren’t eager to dress up to go out. More than 20 years ago he opened the La Scala Boutique. In the mid-eighties he went one step further, spinning off the inexpensive La Scala Presto restaurants. Now he’s bowed to the end of formality in Los Angeles dining, and created a new kind of La Scala restaurant.

This is a friendly place, a great big neighborhood restaurant of a joint where the prices are pretty reasonable, the food is reasonably good and everybody seems welcome. The fact that this particular neighborhood restaurant is frequented by the sort of people who could afford to be eating anywhere helps; it gives the room a sort of power buzz.

You will have to wait; this should not concern you--everybody has to wait. The restaurant seems remarkably casual about reservations. Freddy, the maitre d’ (everybody seems to know him), shrugged when one angry customer waved his watch. “It’s 7:45,” the man shouted, “and I had a 7:30 reservation.” Freddy shrugged again and said soothingly, “You’re going to be seated pretty close to your reservation time.” How close is 20 minutes late?

When you’re finally led to your table you’ll find that it is either in a booth or at a crowded little table. If you’re at a table, there won’t be much privacy and I suggest you get to know your neighbors. They’ll probably be people who’ve been coming here for years, and if this is your first time, they’ll be glad to help you order.

Take the two young men sitting to my right. They didn’t think I should order the sea bass with potatoes (they were right), and they absolutely insisted that I try the zuppa inglese (they were wrong). Meanwhile they wondered if I knew what that thing--the large metal object perched on the ledge above them--was. There are lots of objects and lots to look at. Cluttered is the word that comes to mind. “That thing” turned out to be a duck press. “A what?” my new friends wanted to know. I explained; they were positive I was making the whole thing up.

“I’ve been coming here all my life,” said one, “and I don’t ever remember seeing it before.” He did, however, remember when Freddy was a busboy. And he remembered, happily, all of the dishes he most loved on the menu. He could describe, for instance, in agonizing detail, what happens to the Leon salad if the lettuce is chopped too early. Early or late, the appeal of this particular concoction entirely escapes me. But half of Hollywood was raised on this rather soggy salad with its bits of shredded salami, and everybody loves it. The restaurant must sell thousands weekly. My friend went on to veal Parmesan--a hefty portion--and what the menu calls spaghetti Bolognese. My friend just called it spaghetti with meat sauce, which I consider a more accurate description.

The food came fast; my friend ate slowly. That seems to be par for the course. The service here is efficient, very friendly. And none of the waiters seem anxious to move you out of your seat. No matter how large the crowd waiting at the door (and in my experience there is always a crowd waiting at the door), this is a restaurant where you will not feel rushed.

So take your time. Contemplate the menu. You’ll find that the bread is terrible, but there aren’t a lot of losers among the appetizers. The steamed mussels are beautifully done--although the dish would be better if it were made with regular black mussels instead of those big green monsters from New Zealand. The minestrone is good. The roasted peppers, bresaola and parmigiano, and so forth are all simple, decent dishes.

But you have to step a little more carefully among the main courses. You can’t go wrong with the veal dishes, and the roast chicken with rosemary and potatoes has a homey, friendly sort of flavor. There’s a surprising new dish on the menu--duck sausage with beans--that is just the sort of solid stuff you like to eat in neighborhood hangouts. The pasta dishes have that quality too; they tend to be more old school than new, and they’re served with a generous hand. Unfortunately they are also served with that powdery grated cheese that tastes mostly of salt. The seafood risotto-- cooked with lots of mussels and squid--tasted more Spanish than Italian, but it was delicious.

I would, however, avoid the fish dishes. Dull would be a generous description. And the grilled shrimps were very mealy.

Desserts aren’t a strong suit either. It’s as if the pastry revolution never occurred. The one time I had the one kind of ice cream available (vanilla) it tasted of the freezer. The zuppa inglese is the sort of Italian pastry most local restaurants stopped serving in the middle of the last decade. You might try the carrot cake, of course, but I didn’t. I tried the white chocolate cheesecake instead.

“No, no,” said my neighbor. “I told you to have the zuppa inglese. Or at the very least, the chocolate mousse.” His eyes glazed over. “Yeah,” he said, “the chocolate mousse. I grew up on it.”

Recommended dishes: minestrone, $4.50; risotto with seafood, $12; penne alla arrabbiata, $10; veal scaloppine, $16; duck sausage with beans, $14.