STEAKHOUSE WITH PRIME L.A. ATTITUDE.

Byline: Larry Lipson Restaurant Critic

The latest restaurant to jump onto the downtown beef bandwagon has an oxymoronic name: L.A. Prime, A New York Steakhouse.

And its prime meat is from Chicago. Might as well cover all the big-city bases.

Especially with the swarms of delegates and media people due here for the Democratic National Convention.

But this circular, two-tiered restaurant that sits atop the Westin Bonaventure Hotel looks and feels nothing like a New York steakhouse to me. Except perhaps in attitude for its haughty approach to serving diners.

Call for a dinner reservation and you'll be asked what sitting you want. But there's no set or prix fixe dinner, so why the separate sittings?

Settling for the later 9 p.m. sitting, we arrive a little early and the hostess is telling small parties of dinner customers that they will soon be allowed in.

Sneaking a peek inside confirmed the suspicion that the dining room had numerous empty tables.

By 9:20 we're ushered into the dining room after sipping an aperitif in the downstairs (one floor down) Bona Vista Lounge, one of those rotating rooms with huge windows where the scenery keeps changing, allowing you to enjoy - if you stay long enough - a 360-degree view of downtown Los Angeles.

But L.A. Prime does not volunteer to let you know when your table is ready. You are obligated to walk upstairs and keep checking out the situation yourself.

Our waiter, a rather loud and abrasive fellow, appeared reluctant whenever we asked a question or requested service. This happened even when we asked for hollandaise sauce (on the menu) to go with our side of limp ``jumbo'' asparagus ($5).

I couldn't get a taste of one of the sauce selections, the house steak sauce, he told me, because I'd already indicated that I'd like to try my bone-in 24-ounce Delmonico ($31.50) with the peppercorn sauce option. Not that I liked it. Frankly, it has a sort of lingering vague chemical flavor.

The dining room appeared to be short-staffed on that particular night, which might account for the attitude.

But there's no question that my Delmonico steak was pretty good, delivered medium rare as ordered, almost filling up an oval plate adorned with the L.A. Prime logo. Standing proudly alone, it offered the requisite tenderness without being mushy along with juice and enough flavor to satisfy, one would think, the most demanding of steak purists.

By comparison, a 12-ounce New York ($25) is definitely tougher, not as juicy, quite an ordinary steak for the price.

The kitchen makes passable garlic mashed potatoes ($5), a rather bland French onion soup ($6.50) and would do better to keep its iceberg wedge ($7.25) in a more chilled, crispier state to heighten satisfaction of this old-fashioned starter (with its nicely sharp Maytag bleu cheese).

Actually, L.A. Prime, if it sported a different name and subsequently not as much emphasis on its five steak options, could draw attention as an all-around American meat and seafood place utilizing top-quality ingredients.

The way it is now, it's automatically compared to such other downtown steak stalwarts as Pacific Dining Car and Taylor's along with newcomers Nick & Stef's (soon to open a second location in New York), Windows atop the Transamerica Center Building, and other hotel steak-inspired eating places like the Grill at the Hyatt Regency.

Finishing off the dinner, the restaurant's thinnish wedge of chocolate truffle cake ($7.50) was moist, dense and intense.

A prime L.A. ending.

The facts

--The restaurant: L.A. Prime.

--Where: Westin Bonaventure Hotel, 404 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles.

--When: Open for dinner only from 5:30 to 10 p.m. nightly, to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

--Recommended items: Delmonico steak and chocolate truffle cake.

--How much: Starters from $7.25 to $16 (also Beluga caviar $65 per ounce), entrees from $21 to $42, desserts $7.50 each.

--Wine list: Six pages feature a well-rounded selection of properly vintage-dated, mostly Californian wines with a decent showing of French and Italian bottlings. Only 14 labels priced between $25 and $29, and only one of them a red. Ten wines by the glass from $6.75 to $12 each. Corkage: $15.

--Reservations: Suggested. Call [phone].

--Our rating: Two stars for food; one and one half stars for service; two and one half stars for wine.

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Photo:

Atop the Bonaventure Hotel, L.A. Prime offers a view behind chef Stephen Hall, left, and general manager Antoine Maalouf.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News