The Royale treatment

I'D been peeking in the windows of the Royale at the corner of Rampart and Wilshire boulevards for months, but as the weeks wore on and the heavily touted wine bar failed to materialize, I gave up on the restaurant ever opening. Come December, though, just before Christmas, I got word that Royale had opened -- not as a wine bar but as a full-fledged restaurant.

Curious, I gathered up some friends for dinner last week. I have to say, it's quite glam pulling up in front of the former Wilshire Royale Hotel a few blocks from MacArthur Park. There's a valet to park your car. To the right is the entrance to the hotel-turned-apartment building. To the left, the entrance to the new Royale beckons.

A DJ is setting up in the corner as we enter, and though the place is sparsely populated at that hour, it takes the bartender a few minutes before she realizes we're expecting to be seated. The restaurant is through there, she says, pointing toward the back door.

Gotcha. We head thataway, opening the door onto a stylish patio strung with lights like an Italian piazza. Behind a partial wall, I discover a diminutive swimming pool for (smallish) Esther Williams types. Just when I think we're going to be doing some outdoor dining on this chilly night, we realize we haven't yet reached the restaurant. Its entrance is on the far side of the patio, and really, at this point, we never expected to find anything this glamorous.

Royale is an airy, high-ceilinged room with floor-to-ceiling windows. Enamel-white subway tiles cover the pillars and make the ceiling's darker paint pop. A stunning bird's nest of branches, twined with gold fairy lights, floats above the bar. Bare bulbs encrusted with garlands of cut silver and brass flowers and foliage add their mysterious and dreamy light to the room.

We order wine. We look over the menu, which has incorporated all the latest trends. There's a short list of \o7crudo, \f7i.e., raw fish in the Italian style. The scallop with smoked trout roe and grapefruit has us puzzled, though. Would that be roe of smoked trout or trout roe that has been smoked? In the end, it's a moot point. The raw scallop is sweet, the roe barely detectable as smoked, and the pink grapefruit odd man out. There's also a charcuterie plate, one trend I'm happy to see. Here it includes Serrano ham, fennel salami, \o7speck \f7and chorizo.