BEEF, MARTINIS AND CIGARS MAKE COMEBACK AS AMERICANS INDULGE.

Byline: Michael Klein Knight-Ridder Tribune New Wire

Americans are always talking about health, nutrition and fitness.

They talk about it, sure - between their bites of steak, puffs of cigars and sips of martinis. Dessert? The richer the better.

Beef is back, stocking steakhouses and ritzy restaurants, which are opening faster than you can say bearnaise. Five-dollar cigars are selling faster than workers can roll them. And the martini - the high-octane cocktail that went out with the smoking jacket - is as fashionable as, well, Tony Bennett. Forget nouvelle cuisine. The workaholic 1980s have given way to a retro style of good life dining-out indulgence.

As Barnaby Conrad III, who has written a best-selling book about the martini, interprets it: ``We've, gulp, become our parents.''

Call it a backlash. ``People are sick of the food police,'' said Althea Zanecosky, a dietitian and spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Dietetic Association. ``And people are sick of hearing that everything causes cancer and heart disease. When it comes to going out now, it's no-holds-barred.''

Food trends - like avocado-colored refrigerators - are cyclical, anyway.

Only a few years ago, America's traditional love affair with the clubby steakhouse had cooled.

But, as Bert Parenti, a manager with Wells Meats, says: ``Beef is the basic American cuisine.'' Business at Wells, which sells cuts to many of the Philadelphia area's top restaurants, is up dramatically in the last two years.

Apparently, the love affair is sizzling again.

Parenti had two unlikely people in his office recently: Glen and Marci Feller, who own Wild Orchid Cafe in Mount Laurel, a restaurant not known for its beef sales. They were meeting with Wells Meats because they plan to open a steakhouse in Mount Laurel and wanted to select their cuts.

Not long ago, the Fellers' move would have been unthinkable. Consumption of beef hit an all-time low in 1993, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But that year happened to be the start of what might be termed ``the Outback phenomenon'' - the rise of the steakhouse chain with moderate prices.

``We saw a niche for this,'' said Bob Basham, president and CEO of Outback Steakhouse of Tampa, Fla., whose business has increased sevenfold since 1990.

Virtually overnight, steakhouse chains such as Outback and Lone Star helped spur a rise in beef consumption - 3.2 percent between 1993 and 1994 alone.

Upscale steakhouses and steakhouse chains, such as Morton's of Chicago, Ruth's Chris and Smith & Wollensky, saw a 25 percent increase in customers between 1993 and 1994, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the National Restaurant Association.

``Dining out is an affordable luxury,'' said C.J. Velenziano, a spokeswoman for the beef association. At home, people tend to eat more healthfully, reading labels and considering fat content. The rise in steak consumption has been confined largely to restaurants, Velenziano said.

The urge to splurge has a deeper meaning to New York restaurateur Earl Geer: ``This is a way for people to rebel within the system.'' Two weeks ago, Geer opened Sullivan's, an old-fashioned steakhouse-Chinese restaurant in the Ed Sullivan Theatre in Manhattan. ``Americans have become naughty and outlandish,'' he said.

The air is thick at Quissett, a Haverford, Pa., restaurant, where two dozen men and two women are enjoying a cigar dinner - a pairing of fine food and cigars. The meal - an $85-a-head benefit for the Ronald McDonald House - is stuffed quail with black truffles, salmon with polenta and venison. Cigars are lit up before dinner, between courses and after dinner.

``Cigars are like wine,'' said host Gary Blumenthal, whose area company, Tinder Box Internationale, has 125 stores nationwide, most of which opened in the last 18 months. ``The best ones are the ones you like.''

Businessman Delbert L. White Jr. is savoring a 6-3/4-inch-long Macabi in peace. ``We're the new lepers,'' White said. ``In restaurants, you're paying $100 for two for dinner. You ought to be able to smoke a cigar.''

Since most restaurants are not cigar-friendly, White and business partner Robert Lewis must smoke in their homes or at a cigar dinner, at which a restaurateur will bring in a cigar merchant and host a private party. Virtually unheard of five years ago, cigar dinners can be found at least twice a week in the Philadelphia area.

``A third of the reason for their popularity is the food, a third is the

cigar and the other third is the camaraderie,'' said Lewis, lopping off the end of his cigar with a tiny guillotine.

Cigar smoking is still mainly a guy thing, male bonding for the post-fraternity age. Women make up no more than 10 percent of all cigar smokers, said Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America, a Washington trade group. While cigar smoking has declined markedly since the 1920s, sales of premium cigars actually started rising in 1992, when Wine Spectator magazine introduced the slick publication Cigar Aficionado. Premium-cigar sales in 1995 rose 40 percent over 1994, a year that saw a 30-percent increase, Sharp said.

The image of the fat, old cigar puffer is going up in smoke. ``The average entry age was 30,'' said Sharp. ``Now it's in the mid-20s.

``Cigars have recaptured their traditional image as a symbol of success, celebrity and achievement,'' Sharp said. ``They're also an anti-political correctness kind of thing. There are diametrics at work in America: The desire to tell people what to do and the nonconformity.''

Both the martini, which sells for about $5, and the premium cigar, at $2 to $10, are ``an affordable pleasure,'' said Robert Levin, owner of the family cigar store, Holt's.

Nutrition experts have a problem with eating as a so-called affordable pleasure.

Americans are fatter than ever, according to every recent study.

Bonnie Leibman's main peeve with restaurants is with loportion sizes. Leibman is director of nutrition for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the consumer group that has held news conferences to revile Chinese food and movie-theater popcorn.

Many steakhouses, for example, serve 28-ounce Porterhouses - which can be three or four days' worth of protein and fat for some people, according to nutrition guidelines. Even the 12-ounce sirloin steak that is the best-seller at Outback is too large for most people, Leibman said.

There is a way out. ``I advocate sharing an entree,'' said Hope S. Warshaw, a dietitian and author of ``The Restaurant Companion,'' a guide to more healthful dining out. ``A friend and I went out to Morton's. We split a steak and each ordered a baked potato.''

That sort of thing does happen in the real world, said Joe Badurina, general manager of Morton's of Chicago in Center City. ``But it's more like one person will order a steak, and another will order a lobster and then they'll share.''

Even so, ``you have to be lucky to walk out of a restaurant without dropping 1,000 calories,'' said CSPI's Leibman. ``If you're served large portions, you tend to eat it.''

Americans have been clamoring for more healthful choices in restaurants. But they don't put their money where their mouth is.

The McLean Deluxe, McDonald's lower-fat burger, was pulled earlier this year. Taco Bell not only scaled back its Border Lights menu, it introduced huger, richer selections, including double tacos topped with bacon and rich sauce.

People often tell marketers what the marketers want to hear, said John Scroggins, editor of the Food Channel, a biweekly trend publication. ``Someone will ask you, `Do you smoke?' You say, `No,' but you really mean, `I do but I really mean to stop.' ... People will speak to their intentions and not their actions.''