LESS BEATS, MORE EATS; THOUGH SAN FRANCISCO'S NORTH BEACH HAS GONE UPSCALE, ITS SCRUFFY CHARM ENDURES.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Daily News Staff Writer

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, were he alive and howling today, certainly would recognize his old San Francisco stomping grounds, the city's intimate North Beach neighborhood.

Old friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti still owns the beloved, avant-garde City Lights Booksellers. Washington Square, where fellow beat Jack Kerouac would sleep off a hangover or add to the sweet misery with a bottle of port from neighboring Coit Liquor, continues to welcome the tired, the tourists, the sun worshipers. And favored indoor hangouts like Cafe Trieste and the dark, freewheeling bar Vesuvio still offer java or gin - pick your poison - to all manner of local characters and eccentrics.

But Ginsberg probably wouldn't know quite what to make of the creeping encroachment of upscale restaurants and tourist traps or the fact that Columbus Avenue's infamous Condor Club, where stripper Carol Doda plied her trade through the 1960s, is now a garish, fern-infested sports bar. No doubt dear Ginsberg would mutter ``Moloch!'' to that (he wasn't a fan of sports or of women, but of atmosphere, and the Condor had that in spades) before shuffling off to Vesuvio for a drink.

Fortunately, North Beach has retained enough of its scruffy charm to make visitors forget the Banana Republic and glimpse the old Bohemian Republic. This is, after all, a neighborhood with no Starbucks (but scores of stylish coffeehouses), no Gap stores (even though the chain is based in the Bay Area) and precious few souvenir shops.

Residents are currently busy fighting Rite Aid, contesting the pharmacy chain's plans to open a massive outlet across from Washington Square. (Slogan of choice: Rite Aid, Wrong Place.)

What the neighborhood has embraced in recent years is cuisine, appropriate enough given North Beach's Italian heritage. Italians weren't the first to arrive here; Chilean prostitutes beat them by a good 30 years. But by the end of the 19th century, Italian culture ruled North Beach. (There is no beach, by the way; the inlet was filled long ago.)

The area's most famous son is baseball great Joe DiMaggio, who first was married here and, sadly, recently eulogized here at Washington Square's Saints Peter and Paul Church. DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe at City Hall (both were divorced, so they couldn't use the church), but posed for their wedding pictures outside the Washington Square landmark.

Given the long history, you've never been able to walk a dozen steps anywhere on Columbus Avenue without running into an Italian restaurant. Some have been here for generations (Fior D'Italia claims to be the oldest Italian restaurant still operating in the country, opening its doors, primarily to patrons of a neighboring brothel, in 1886) and others are shiny, new and innovative.

Your choice ultimately says as much about your palate (i.e., do you like your pasta to co-exist with its sauce or surrender to it?) as your bank account. Authenticity often comes with a hefty price tag.

Little Italy is giving way to some newcomers, though, and these restaurants, as much as anything, are responsible for North Beach's recent renaissance. Restaurateur Reed Hearon has been the most innovative in adding some modern-day swank to the area's beatnik past. His Rose Pistola serves creative regional Italian cuisine to the accompaniment of evening jazz bands. And the restaurant's menu features a Ferlinghetti poem on its cover. (Don't worry, squares can get reservations, too.)

Further down Columbus, smugly stuck in the middle of Broadway's seedy strip joints, is Hearon's other restaurant, the Black Cat, affectionately named after an old Bohemian bar-cafe on Montgomery Street. Upstairs, the restaurant features an eclectic menu that includes creole cuisine and seafood. Downstairs, in the Blue Bar, traditional jazz bands contend with preening patrons for the audience's attention.

Last I checked, the posers were winning.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Half the fun of a long weekend in North Beach is sharing in the unabashed delight that people here take in watching each other. Viewing spots of choice: a park bench in Washington Square, a cafe window seat along Columbus Avenue or one of the prized outdoor tables at Rose Pistola. Me, I prefer the restaurant because it combines the area's two great pastimes - eating and the contemplation of life's human parade.

A perfect base camp for this type of North Beach excursion is the Hotel Boheme. Just up Columbus from City Lights, the hotel sits within easy walking distance of North Beach's best restaurants, and when you're eating on the average of something like six meals a day, proximity is everything. Eat, walk, nap. Eat, walk, nap. These are the rhythms of the classic San Francisco holiday.

Of course, should you want to make a pilgrimage to Pier 39 (and its popular sea lion squatters), you'll only have a nine-minute walk from the hotel. Chinatown is four minutes away in the opposite direction. It's three minutes to the nearest cable car stop, 10 minutes to Coit Tower. Be warned, though. It's a steep climb to the tower. You might want to save it until just before lunch to further prime your appetite.

Location isn't the only reason to stay at the Boheme. Like Rose Pistola and the Black Cat, this elegant, little 15-room hotel has spun the neighborhood's past into something original and, yet, perfectly in step with its surroundings. It's New Old World.

The Boheme's cozy rooms are painted in shades of sage green, cantaloupe orange and, yes, Bohemian black. Lampshades sport glazed collages of Beat poetry and jazz sheet music. Warm corridors are filled with moody, black-and-white photographs of old North Beach jazz clubs and night life. It's like stepping back in time, only without the downside of authentic period squalor.

All that's missing are the Beats themselves, but if you open your window over Columbus Avenue (and despite the considerable street noise, this is where you should book your room), you may well hear some solitary figure bellowing free-form verse at the top of his lungs as he trudges to the nearby bus stop. You can't put a high enough price on this kind of atmosphere. (Another option: Close the window.)

From the Boheme, you have to walk, oh, all of five feet to experience sublime San Francisco. Next door to the hotel, third-generation bakery Stella Pastry serves a trademarked (yes, they've gone to the patent office) dessert called sacripantina, which means, roughly translated from Italian, ``Holy smoke!''

Legend has it that that was the response of the Genoan queen who first tasted the dessert, which combines sponge cake and a delicate cream made with fresh egg yolks, sweet butter, rum, and Marsala and sherry wines. No one who tastes it questions the story's authenticity.

But then North Beach specializes in the authentically implausible. How else do you explain that low-rent strippers are plying their trade at the hungry i, the great club where Lenny Bruce, Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen made a name for themselves, while down Broadway at the Condor Club, men are watching satellite sports instead of naked women following in Carol Doda's dance steps. There is at least a bronze plaque proclaiming the Condor as ``birthplace of the world's first topless & bottomless entertainment.''

A more delightful incongruity (and one I'd actually recommend visiting) is Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store. This pocket-size bar, long a favorite of the Beats and old Sicilians, doesn't sell cigars. (Heck, you can't even smoke here.) But it does offer mouth-watering hot meatball and eggplant sandwiches on crisp, fresh focaccia bread baked at nearby Gloria Bakery. The tiramisu is popular, too, a good sign given Mario's strong Italian following.

Mario's is but one of a myriad of Beat-related hangouts still thriving in North Beach. Tosca Cafe has opera on its jukebox and red vinyl booths for its patrons. Politicos and socialites love this 80-year-old place but usually hang out in the back room away from the gawkers.

Nobody gets a free ride, though. One night in the mid-'60s, Bob Dylan and poets Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti were celebrating North Beach with one too many of the house specialties (coffeeless cappuccinos made with steamed milk, brandy and chocolate). The Tosca bartender threw them out on their ears and wouldn't let them back in despite Dylan's nasal protestations. (How does it feeeeel, indeed.)

Around the corner on William Saroyan Place is Spec's Adler Museum Cafe, a small dive with maritime flags hung from the ceiling and shelves filled with bric-a-brac seemingly culled from around the globe. There is no back room here.

Or you could skip the Beats and Little Italy altogether and walk over to a relatively new North Beach institution, O'Reilly's, quite possibly the best Irish pub outside of the Emerald Isle. With its cobblestone floor and old street lamp imported from Dublin and its beautiful, antique Celtic glass back bar, O'Reilly's feels like Ireland, which is precisely the point. Immigrant owner Myles O'Reilly has created a home away from home for himself, other immigrants and anyone who has longed to visit Ireland but never had the opportunity.

``I wanted to honor all the great Irish traditions,'' Myles told me over a Guinness, the dark stout that is not so much poured here as it is built. (Some 35 kegs of Guinness are consumed each week here.) Myles has lovingly filled his pub and restaurant with Irish-related books and pictures and a striking mural of the country's great authors, including Shaw, Joyce, Yeats and Beckett.

That sense of tradition extends to the pub's mascot, an enormous Irish wolfhound named Fionn who patrols the premises and welcomes visitors - when the mood strikes. And since the 185-pound Fionn is the size of a small pony, he can pretty much do whatever his mood dictates (which usually involves lying quietly in the corner).

Follow one new North Beach pleasure with another and have dinner at the House. Situated near the neighboring Chinatown, this marvelous restaurant appropriately enough combines Eastern and Western ingredients for a fusion cuisine that is uniquely its own. Its signature dish is a grilled Chilean sea bass with garlic ginger soy sauce. The fish practically melts in your mouth, as does the restaurant's other fresh seafood and noodle dishes.

Would Ginsberg have dined here? Maybe. Maybe not. But with fresh Chilean sea bass resting warm in your belly for $15, it's not a question that's likely to linger long in your brain.

IF YOU GO

EATS: North Beach has enough restaurants to invite round-the-clock dining. Many take that route. A few choices:

Black Cat, 501 Broadway. [phone]. Cajun-creole, seafood . . . just about anything that you can imagine that tastes good. Downstairs, straight-ahead jazz bands play and drinks are served in the Blue Room. Typical cover charge: $5.

The House, 1230 Grant Ave. [phone]. Top-flight fusion. Reservations recommended.

Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store, 566 Columbus Ave. [phone]. No cigars, just mouth-watering sandwiches.

O'Reilly's, 622 Green St. [phone]. Great Guinness, warm atmosphere and the food isn't bad, either.

Rose Pistola, 532 Columbus Ave. [phone]. Upscale Italian. Call ahead.

Stella Pastry, 446 Columbus Ave. [phone]. A dessert that deserves its trademark, sacripantina.

BEATS: The landmarks are still there. Grab your black turtleneck and beret and visit a few.

City Lights Booksellers, 261 Columbus Ave. Ground zero for Beat poetry. Owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti still pops in from time to time.

Spec's Adler Museum Cafe, 12 Saroyan Place. Small dive. Authentic atmosphere.

Tosca Cafe, 242 Columbus Ave. Opera on the jukebox, politicos in the back room.

Vesuvio, 255 Columbus Ave. Favorite of Beats and locals. Quotation over the bar: ``T'was a woman that drove me to drink and I never had the decency to thank her.''

WHERE TO STAY: Hotel Boheme, 444 Columbus Ave. [phone]. Elegant, 15-room hotel is perfectly in step with the neighborhood's literary history. Manager Bruce Abney will gladly tailor his exhaustive knowledge of the area to your needs, providing walking tour itineraries and dinner reservations. Rooms are $139.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, Box, Map

Photo: (1--Color) Saints Peter and Paul Church, right, is the religious center of North Beach and is where Joe DiMaggio was married and eulogized.

(2--Color) Coit Tower, below, which looms over North Beach on neighboring Telegraph Hill, is well worth the climb for the view of San Francisco Bay.

(3--Color) The outdoor tables at the popular Italian restaurant Rose Pistola make for some of the best people-watching spots along Columbus Avenue.

(4--Color) Owner Myles O'Reilly and his Irish wolfhound, Fionn, are among many reasons to visit O'Reilly's Irish pub and restaurant.

(5) Just up Columbus Avenue from City Lights, the Hotel Boheme sits within easy walking distance of North Beach's best restaurants.

Jeff Carlick

Box: IF YOU GO (See text)

Map: North Beach

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