El Gaucho Rides Back Into Town With Flair

----------------------------------------------------------------- Restaurant review

XXX El Gaucho, 2505 First Ave. ($$$$) Dinner ($12 to $31) 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Friday; closed Sunday. No lunch. Lounge; full bar. Major credit cards. Smoking in lounge and cigar lounge. Wheelchair accessible. Reservations: 728-1337. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Everything old is new again.

When the old El Gaucho, a downtown watering hole and bastion at Seventh Avenue and Olive Way, closed in the '80s, it was generally acknowledged that an era had indeed passed.

The "Gauch," with its mink-lined booths, was second home to a (mostly departed) generation of hard-drinking broadcasters, politicians, journalists, late-night-party survivors and others who ranged from merely self-indulgent to seriously debauched. Its wee-hours early-morning-hunt breakfasts served until 4 a.m. were legendary.

So were its steaks, its flaming swords of shish kebabs and a necessarily expert and discreet waitstaff.

It failed in 1985, although its menu and demeanor harkened back to an earlier Seattle. The Gauch was pure West Coast '50s.

El Gaucho II was brought back to life in a converted Belltown union hall/mosh pit a little more than a month ago by Paul Mackay, the dining-room manager at the old place, who enlisted the services of chef Ken Sharp, until recently a top kitchen man with Consolidated Restaurants (Union Square Grill, Pescatore and others), and a tuxedoed, gold-braided waitstaff hand-picked from the best dining rooms in the city.

Dim, seductive decor

The darkly classy interior (almost magically redone by the design team of Margo Arellano and Philip Christofides, who did the nearby Flying Fish) is artfully, seductively dim, with islands of table lamps glinting in an opaque sea of a dining room, with splashes of light and clamor emanating from the lounge along one wall and the open kitchen across another.

Standing bemused in the lounge one recent evening was a broadcasting veteran of the former Gauch. "I just wanted to see if they had bronzed any of the old livers," he explained.

Not much has changed. "I never saw so many people drinking martinis," marveled a woman friend.

Ken Sharp's menu features 28-day dry-aged black angus beef in cuts from $19 for a small filet mignon to $62 for a 28-ounce chateaubriand, carved tableside for two. It's expensive. Add in a baked potato ($4), a vegetable ($4.95 for spinach or asparagus) or grilled portobello mushrooms ($6) and you could easily be into $50 a person before you've sniffed the wine cork.

But the wine will be choice. And the steaks recall the legendary indulgences of yore. Very simply, they're great, especially the Peppercorn New York (16 ounces for $28).

Vegetarians may be offended by the whole idea of the place, but there's a Vegetarian Canneloni available for $12 and a very fine, hyper-rich, slightly oversalted Wild Mushroom Risotto for $14.95.

Appetizers are outstanding, especially the Killer Shrimp ($7.50) braised in a deep-red tidal pool of ancho chilies. In a warm basket alongside will be horizontally sliced halves of slightly toasted, buttered bread under a red-and-white-checkered napkin - just like the garlic bread of old.

Dungeness Crab Cocktail ($8.50) arrives with several naked claws laid over a bed of shredded crab in a lively horseradish remoulade. Even the Steamed Mussels are served in a voluptuous balsamic cream sauce.

The Gaucho Salad ($5.50) is back, tossed at tableside - essentially an eggless Caesar augmented with shrimp and loaded with a creamed Roquefort dressing.

Meals `en cutlass'

Blue-flaming brochettes wave vertically through the low-lit space, flickering like Luke Skywalker's sword - meals en cutlass. The lamb is $19, the Alaskan Sea Scallops are also $19 and a fearful amount of beef tenderloin is $24.

Three fresh-fish entrees are prepared nightly (prices vary); the Chilean Sea Bass is choice, and I have always admired chef Sharp's way with Bouillabaisse ($21.95).

I haven't yet tried the Buffalo Rib Steak ($30), but will as soon as my fringed buckskins come back from the cleaners.

One quibble: An order of sauteed spinach was harsh with unmitigated garlic.

Dessert after all this? How many decades has it been since you succumbed to Bananas Foster? Made with Olympic Mountain Ice Cream, rum, brown sugar and Galliano?

Created at Brennen's in New Orleans in the early 1950s . . . it's back. (Copyright, 1997 John Hinterberger. All rights reserved.) John Hinterberger, who writes the weekly restaurant review in Tempo and a Sunday food column in Pacific, visits restaurants anonymously and unannounced. He pays in full for all food, wines and services. Interviews of the restaurants' management and staff are done only after meals and services have been appraised. He does not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants.