The scene’s the thing

Weekends, the bar at the new Cobras & Matadors in Los Feliz is six deep. And outside, groups of friends queue up under the scrawl of red neon that spells out the name, or crowd the podium at the front in hopes of a table. You don’t need to know the address to realize the Spanish tapas bar is on the east side of L.A. Look at the crowd.

Not a recognizable designer label in evidence. The women don’t carry trophy Vuitton or Hermes bags. Should you spy the telltale logo, for sure it’s vintage. Instead of entwined double “C” earrings, here it’s studs and a delicate tracery of tattoos. If there’s a defining style, it’s cutting edge eclectic, a combination of thrift store finds and edgy young designer wear put together with an inventive eye. The crowd is a mix of all ages and ethnicities -- bohemians and lawyers, scholars and gender benders, friends and lovers. It’s loud. It’s raucous. It’s fun.

Owner Steven Arroyo is a master at conjuring up the right atmosphere for his audience. He isn’t into trendy. His is a hipper, grittier aesthetic, with an almost pitch-perfect sense of scene. Allergic to glitz, he evokes the urban and noir in his interiors, usually with a theme that’s barely sketched in, merely suggested. He did it at the first Cobras & Matadors on Beverly Boulevard. He’s done it at the bar Cobra Lily and at the “Mexican dive” Malo.

When he occasionally miscalculates, as he did with his first restaurant, Boxer, he just comes back and takes another crack at it. He retooled Boxer into the first Cobras. And Hillmont, Arroyo’s budget steakhouse that never quite took off, was reborn as this second Cobras. He closed briefly, built some banquettes and partitions, installed a bar, some dangling red lamps to warm up the room and -- presto chango! -- the space goes from moribund steakhouse to wildly successful tapas restaurant.

At tables covered with butcher paper, dishes are set in the middle, passed and shared. Toasts are made. Pitchers of sangria are filled and emptied. The food is earthy and direct, the flavors of Spain filtered through a California sensibility. Tortillas (Spanish omelets) laced with potatoes and chorizo. Steamed mussels or littleneck clams with a garlicky kick. And wonderful little lake smelt, fried to a pale gold. Some dishes cost as little as $5, others edge above $10, but not even the steaks are more than $20.

Early on, the food was much better than I ever remember it being at the original Cobras restaurant. That perfect little fry of lake smelt, for example, but also the classic albondigas, fluffy meatballs in a smooth spicy red pepper sauce and grilled octopus in a piquant salsa verde. Even with more than 30 items on the menu, the kitchen was turning the food out astonishingly fast, almost as fast as a tapas bar in Spain.

But in Spain, the cold tapas are already prepared, sitting out on the bar, and the few hot dishes are cooked on a couple of burners right behind the counter. Cobras’ menu is much more extensive and encompasses many more cooking techniques. Almost every dish has to be prepared to order. Unfortunately, on a couple of recent visits the kitchen was having trouble keeping up. The cooking was uneven, not nearly as crisp and well-defined, some dishes salty or too sweet, enough to make me wonder if someone else is in the kitchen on weekdays.

The idea is to order in flights. A nice way to start is with an order of lomo, dry-cured pork loin, and goat cheese, and some pa amb tomaquet, Catalan’s grilled or toasted bread, rubbed with a ripe tomato, and drizzled with fruity Spanish olive oil. Sprinkled with salt, “bread with tomato” is sometimes served plain, or, as it is here, topped with a ruddy slice of jamon Serrano, the raw-cured ham that is to Spain what prosciutto is to Italy, and manchego cheese.

Other dishes the kitchen does particularly well include tiny green lentils sauteed with slivers of that same ham until both are a little crunchy, the ham adding a salty note. These, and the patatas fritas, big soft chunks of potato fried to a warm golden brown and served with aioli and a sort of romesco sauce, are holdovers from the highly successful original Cobras menu. The rest of the menu runs from a gazpacho laced with tomato and melon to more substantial meat dishes one person could happily eat for dinner, or share tapas-style with everyone else at the table.

I like that the shrimp in Cobras’ version of one of my Spanish favorites, prawns mojo de ajo, come in the shell, sizzling in oil and garlic, just like they do in Spain. It’s messy eating, but worth it. Sugar chile prawns temper their red chile heat with sweetness. And for something more unusual, there’s grilled octopus in a garlicky salsa verde, or green sauce.

Socca, chickpea crepes, more associated with southern France than Spain, are soft and tender, really delicious. I also like the simplicity of mushrooms sauteed with a little garlic and a splash of sherry vinegar. And the tall little bacalao, or salt cod, cakes that taste just as salty and firm as the ones you’d find in Spain or Portugal.

On return visits, though, the lentils I’d loved before are greasy and somehow sweet, the steamed clams are funky and a little tough, the beet salad is doused with a sweet vinaigrette, probably balsamic vinegar. Our meatballs are scorched on top. Only the fried potatoes, the socca and the bacalao taste as vibrant as they had the first time around. It could be I just hit a couple of off nights.

When it comes time to move on to the more substantial dishes, one of my guests collects suggestions from other tables, just the way he would if he were traveling in Spain. The winemaker’s strip loin steak with paprika, grapes and drunken goat cheese gets a big thumbs up from the next table. And we have to agree.

Barbecued skirt steak marinated in orange juice and paprika may be even better. Chewy and flavorful skirt steak is an underappreciated cut. Grilled rack of lamb, baby chops the size of what the Italians call scottadita, give a nice hit of lamb flavor, but for me, the Port honey reduction is cloying. That didn’t stop anybody at the table from scarfing up every one of them.

While Arroyo doesn’t have the luxury of a wine shop next door as he does at the original Cobras, at this location he’s installed a rudimentary bar at the back: a couple of planks and behind, a sea of bottles with corks stuck in the top. The all-Spanish list offers more than 40 wines by the glass. Nothing high-tech about this storage system, but how do you keep all those bottles fresh? Simple. At the end of the evening most of it goes into the sangria. Which means the sangria isn’t made with the usual rotgut red.

I usually stay away from sangria, remembering some world-class headaches suffered in my 20s. But I thought I’d try it here, just for science, and it was excellent. More wine than fruit juice, and restrained in its sweetness. You can order it by the pitcher or by the glass.

A lively ending

At the end of the evening, the butcher paper covering your table bears the traces of wine, olive oil and crumbs spilled as plates made their way around the table. And if you order churros for dessert, which you should, dribbles of chocolate will add another layer. They’re not the best churros I’ve had, but the warm squiggles of dough fried to a dark brown and covered in sugar and cinnamon end things on a festive note. I like them plain, but the dipping sauce made from Mexican chocolate takes them to another level.

Flan is disappointing, though, grainy and tough. It’s a dessert that Spanish cooks take pride in making silky perfect. Like any of the dishes on the menu at Cobras & Matadors, flan doesn’t require a chef to make it, but it does require a careful cook. And Arroyo has kept costs down at his various restaurants (except Boxer) by designing menus that need only a competent line cook to execute. He’s not spending on big name chefs. Even so, finding good cooks is easier said than done.

At all of his restaurants, the food is just one element in the equation anyway. The scene Arroyo creates is the major draw. At this second edition of Cobras & Matadors, the service is so warm and personable and the atmosphere so evocative of urban Spain -- Madrid meets Los Angeles -- that everybody wants to like the place.

I think Arroyo may be betting that not many will notice the kitchen’s slips. He may be right. His Eastside audience wants somewhere to go that’s fun and affordable. With the steakhouse Hillmont, he got the affordable part, but the communal tables and benches never quite conjured up the fun. Cobras & Matadors is not only more festive, it’s more versatile. It can be drinks at the bar, a Spanish wine tasting with a sampling of tapas, or a full-on feast.

*

Cobras & Matadors

Rating: * 1/2

Location: 4655 Hollywood Blvd. (at Vermont), Los Feliz; (323) 669-3922

Ambience: Lively tapas restaurant in a warehouse-like space with a bar at the back. The crowd is young and bohemian, the place festive and fun, especially on the weekends when it’s mobbed.

Service: Friendly and unflappable

Price: Tapas, $5 to $13; bigger plates, $13 to $17; cheese plates, $10 to $20; desserts, $6

Best dishes: Pa amb tomaquet, sauteed green lentils, socca cakes, patatas fritas, mojo de ajo shrimp, barbecued skirt steak, lamb in Port honey sauce, churros

Wine list: A good sangria by the glass or pitcher, more than 40 Spanish wines by the glass and bottle. Corkage, $15.

Special features: All-Spanish wine list

Details: Dinner, 6 to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 6 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. Beer and wine. Street and lot parking.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.