Dressed up like a diva

FLASH! Click! Flash, flash, flash! Digital cameras erupt all over the dining room like popcorn popping. In the next booth, a quartet of young Latinas with a mom in tow crowd closer together, the better to fit in the frame. Smile, says the obliging waiter as he snaps their pic, capturing this night out at "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria Parker's new Hollywood hot spot, Beso -- kiss.

All night, they keep checking the room, in hopes that their idol will show. But, though the waiter swears that Parker stops in almost every night, the curvaceous actress is in Cannes tonight.

But her fans are here, reveling in the gorgeous chandeliers that dangle like Fred Leighton diamond earrings from the lofty ceilings of this spectacular space. The designer, Tracie Butler, has done Parker proud with a contemporary look that exudes money and sex appeal.

And the effect begins in the bar with its offset ivory stone bricks discreetly emblazoned with candles. The bar itself is marble and lighted from underneath so it looks transparent. Overhead, a stainless-steel shelf holds watermelons, stone fruit and citrus that go into the seductive fruit-laced cocktails.

Parker is yet another celebrity smitten by the restaurant bug. Jennifer Lopez has Madre's in Pasadena, which manages to survive despite mediocre food. "Shark" actress Jeri Ryan has Ortolan, but she happens to be married to its French chef, Christophe Eme. Parker was smart enough not to go it alone and brought in chef Todd English, something of a celebrity in his own right as Boston's answer to Wolfgang Puck. But with the Boston-based chef dropping in only from time to time, does the food live up to the hype and glamour of the setting?

It's worth noting that every time I've dined at Beso, the hostesses at the door have said that our table wasn't quite ready and not too subtly urged us to wait in the bar. That's four cocktails times $14 or $15, or, for a Bellini, $23. . . ka-ching. I didn't much like the $10 upfront valet charge either, but this is Hollywood -- and in Hollywood, sad to say, $10 or more to have your car parked has become the norm.

When your table is ready, a hostess threads her way through tables with posh, black, tufted-leather chairs, past the seafood -- lobsters, oysters, clams, shrimp -- laid out on ice in front of the open kitchen, which is half ceviche bar, half steak grill.

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