In Bacchus’ Dining Room, Portion Sizes Live Up to the Name

“Please pay now,” said our valet at Bacchus, as we handed him a set of keys in the shadow of the club’s flashy red awning. “We’re expecting a crowd and we like to take care of business before it gets too busy.”

That evening (a Thursday), he needn’t have worried. The crowds are still discovering this unusual new club, a multileveled place that, like the Hutton Center’s red-hot Roxbury, combines a nightclub, a disco, a sedate dining room and an eccentric private room--a sealed chamber complete with Disney-like special effects--all under one roof.

Some of you may remember this Lido peninsula property when it was called Magic Island. In those days, the club served magic and food in a maze of rooms with names like the Garden of Nefertiti, the Garden of Isis and Cleopatra’s chamber.

Today, the totally renovated club continues to play with different forms of the mystical, even if the name Bacchus implies wine, food and all-around excess. The private room is called the Haunted Room, and at different times you’ll find mediums, palm readers and other occult entertainers on premises (generally in the downstairs bar).

If you do come to dine, you’ll be led up a dark staircase, just as in the Magic Island days, into a strangely claustrophobic dining area full of thick red velvet curtains and tables cloaked in white linen. One wall, flooded with fluorescent light, is painted with a trompe l’oeil mural of a sheltering sky. A few tables are located by a panoramic window affording a view of the lights of Lido Marina Village and a simultaneous close-up of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks sign. If that isn’t occult, what is?

Certainly, what you eat here isn’t. Chef David Gibbs did good work at Laguna Beach’s Kachina but seems to be holding back somewhat in this kitchen. The theme is Mediterranean: pastas, seafoods, a few grilled meats and several tapas, those Spanish bar snacks. I think Gibbs needs to take more chances.

The first thing you taste here actually comes as the biggest surprise. As soon you are seated, a basket of pita bread and a ramekin filled with hummus are brought to your table. The hummus comes as a mild shock (particularly in a room as dimly lit as this one, because it’s hard to see what’s in the ramekin); after all, you don’t exactly expect a garlicky garbanzo bean dip in a place that looks like this. Luckily, it turns out to be a delicious prelude to the dinner.

The relatively diverse appetizer list is highlighted by the Spanish tapas platter, which changes nightly according to the whim of the chef. One night, it positively overflowed with chicken brochettes, scallop-sized chunks of slightly blackened ahi tuna, a menu item that Gibbs calls camarones de ajo (mushy polenta pancakes topped with shrimp grilled in a tomato garlic butter) and a variety of little garnishes.

This is all tasty fare, and it feels strange to say this, but the platter is crowded and the tapas are much too big. Proper tapas are supposed to be bite-sized bar foods that encourage tippling. I guess the Bacchanalian side of the chef gets the better of him sometimes.

Gibbs’s pastas and entrees, which themselves tend toward the over-sized, are generally speaking overly complicated as well. Sea bass features his version of romesco sauce, a Catalan specialty sauce made with tomatoes, crushed almonds and hot peppers. This is a tasty sauce, but it’s unlike any romesco I’ve ever had. Usually the sauce is red or reddish brown. This one looked pale green, like a pesto, in the dining room’s muted light.

As for pesto, the waiter insisted we try the chef’s version, so we ordered linguine with pesto, topped with a heap of cut up grilled chicken. I’d call the creamy, subtly flavored basil sauce a roaring success, though the other components in the dish came across as rather ordinary.

Filet au Roquefort is one of his other successes: a beautiful piece of olive oil-marinated meat, grilled and topped with crumbled fresh Roquefort. (No one at the table would have minded a little more of the cheese.) But I’m going to withhold recommending ttoro , a Basque fisherman’s stew (pronounced tyoro in the Basque country) chock-full of shrimp, langostinos , clams, fish (sea bass, I think) and mussels. Chock-full it may be, but the dish is just plain bland.

There are other successes, however. Ensalata grigli is warm grilled romaine with yellow teardrop tomatoes and a sensational Caesar dressing that you pour on the lettuce from a sauce boat. A hearty chunk of swordfish is cooked with basil pesto, three colors of roasted bell pepper, flavorful Nicoise olives and capers.

You can end a meal here with the overly custardy creme brulee or with a workmanlike tirami su , but I have a better idea. Go to the bar, find Angela the Palm Reader, and see if there is a Ford in your future. If not, don’t worry. You’ve already paid for your car this evening.

Bacchus is expensive, with a $20 minimum per person. Antipasti are $5.75 to $10.95. Pastas are $8.95 to $12.75. Entrees are $12.95 to $17.95.

* BACCHUS

* 3505 Via Oporto, Newport Beach.

* (714) 675-8712.

* Dinner only, Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday, 7:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

* All major cards accepted.