DOWNTOWN'S BEST TABLES.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

The Walt Disney Concert Hall has breathed a puff of fresh life into downtown Los Angeles, but fine dining is also an essential component in the shedding of a ghost-town image, and in that regard the city is making solid progress.

Concert-goers and museum visitors may now choose among three acclaimed restaurants along or near Grand Avenue: Patina, the Water Grill and Pinot Cafe.

There are also a number of attractive lunchtime options, many of them reasonably priced.

Patina: This restaurant, which swapped its original Melrose Avenue site for the Disney Concert Hall, was recently credited as ``the most striking statement about the new L.A. dining scene'' by Wine Spectator magazine. Executive chef Theo Schoenegger and sommelier Eric Espuny have drawn raves for their imagination and risk-taking.

The decor is stylish, mirroring the waves of fine-grained wood found inside the performance hall itself. The menu is heavy on seafood, though the cote de boeuf ($38) is a specialty. A four-course Ocean Menu ($85) deviates from the most popular filets to present a parade of monkfish, turbot and black grouper (the latter fricasseed). One restaurant gimmick is the six-course Chef's Table Menu ($120), for which diners are seated behind glass looking into the kitchen.

Make reservations for Patina the instant you buy your tickets for a Music Center event, because this is one tough table. Also open for lunch on weekdays. 141 S. Grand Ave. [phone]; www.patinagroup.com. (The restaurant is so popular, you get a phone tree when you call.)

Water Grill: Though several blocks south of the Music Center, this is a personal favorite. Its seafood is superb, its setting romantic.

Even if you just stop in for a glass of wine at the bar and a platter of fresh oysters, you'll find more than a half-dozen varieties of the latter, from Prince Edward Island malpeques to Washington state hama hamas.

The main-course menu brims with exotic fish filets - New Zealand John Dory, Icelandic char, Alaskan T-bone halibut (for two), Virginia black bass - and the preparations of executive chef Michael Cimarusti don't overwhelm them. The menu changes daily, depending on what's being pulled from the sea.

The subterranean maze of parking at the Music Center and the Disney Concert Hall can be a source of dread, so we like to park here and have dinner, then take a short cab ride or the restaurant's free shuttle to an event. The shuttle will bring you back afterward, but we prefer the pleasant walk back on Grand Avenue - it's all downhill. The restaurant charges only $4 to look after your car for the evening.

Open for lunch. 544 S. Grand Ave. [phone]; www.watergrill.com.

Pinot Cafe: Like Patina, this is part of Joachim and Christine Splichal's Patina Group. The restaurant sits in the Maguire Gardens of the L.A. Central Library, a short walk west of Grand Avenue. The menu is diverse, offering such dishes as goat cheese risotto with marinated olives, rabbit loin and spicy lobster Bolognese.

The Garden Patio is a nice setting for dining, though it could use a thick hedge of greenery in the evening, as Maguire Gardens has become a favored hangout of some of downtown's unhappy wanderers.

Open for lunch. 700 W. Fifth St. [phone].

Concert Hall Cafe: To accommodate late-arriving Disney Concert Hall patrons who might be in a rush to get to their seats, the salads and sandwiches here are ready-made and displayed in plastic containers. We weren't thrilled with this ... until we tasted the fare. Items were fresh and tasty. A couple of hot entrees are served to order (about $10).

The selection of drinks is vast: several wines by the half-bottle (including Dry Creek fume blanc for $16), juices and ginger beer.

Tables are arranged in an area off the concert hall's stunning lobby, so you can sit among Douglas fir-covered pillars and smoked-glass panels and watch the passing parade.

141 S. Grand Ave. [phone].

Patinette Cafe: On the grounds of the Museum of Contemporary Art, this cafe used to be a downtown lunchtime gem. But the opinion here is that it slipped noticeably after it shifted from table service to counter service. One nice feature: On Thursdays, when the museum doesn't charge admission, the cafe offers wine by the glass for only $1 with the purchase of an entree.

Yet another member of the Patina Group. 250 S. Grand Ave. [phone].

Cathedral Plaza Cafe: Jurors and downtown office workers on a budget swear by this place, which has the most reasonably priced items in the area - huge salads for $6, grilled chicken sandwiches for $5. You get what you pay for, though - don't expect gourmet fare. Beer and wine available.

The outdoor seating is pleasant, provided you snag a table with an umbrella on the huge concrete patio, which can get broiler-hot in the summer. The adjacent Children's Garden is intriguing, with its olive trees and oversize sculptures of animals from Bible stories.

555 W. Temple St. [phone]; www.olacathedral.org.