The question: Is Pearl Ultralounge a bar or a restaurant?

The answer: Yes.

As is increasingly common, this new addition to Ala Moana Center has two personalities: one early in the evening and quite another after 10, when the lights go down, the music cranks up and the place becomes a seething mass of bodies, with Beautiful Young Things knocking back Pearl martinis (lychee and melon Skyy vodka; $8) and sucking up Bitch by the glass (Bitch Granache 2004; $8).

As a Broken-down Older Thing, I visited Pearl in the dusky twilight, when the muted music flows from Brazilian jazz to Afro-pop, the servers have time to stop and trade restaurant recommendations and the colors — saffron orange, Chinese red, deep mahogany and rosewood — glow.

Pearl is made up of three expansive areas, each with a slightly different but coordinated look, each served by its own bar (though only two operate during slow times). Banquettes are perched high along the walls, the seats are all barstool-altitude but plush and sturdy, so you don't get that teetery feeling, even after a couple of glasses of Jim Clendenen's beautifully balanced Au Bon Climat pinot noir ($10.50).

Just like Clendenen's much-celebrated wine, Pearl feels carefully selected and not overdone: the upholstery with the buttery texture of woven leather, the small but stylish menu designed by chef Donato Loperfido (yes, the one who owned Donato's in Manoa), the abstract artwork, the waitresses' tiny Chinese brocade tops.

As director of culinary development, Loperfido isn't cooking at Pearl; he oversees a kitchen headed by his former sous chef, arranges catering and books special events. But his fine Italian hand is obvious in dishes such as steamed Salt Spring mussels & Manila clams ($9.75) and saffron risotto cakes ($7.50).

The tender shellfish (three each of mussels and clams) swim in a generous portion of garlicky broth concocted of pinot grigio and roasted heirloom tomatoes, flanked by two rusks of country-style bread. There was enough to more than satisfy a light appetite — or tease the palate before ranging further in the menu. Also filling was the trio of lightly cheesed and crisped risotto patties, topped with a mound of smoky sauteed enoki mushroom and an earthy Chianti sauce.

Straying from the Mediterranean theme, we tried the San Francisco-style Dungeness crab cakes with roasted garlic-lemon ajoli, accompanied by a salad of tender greens drizzled with tart dressing. Crab cakes are easy to get wrong — when poor-quality crab is used, when too many fillers are added, or when they're too heavily breaded or too long in the deep fat. Not here; the pair of cakes all but floated off the plate, gorgeously golden, tasting sweetly of the sea. (In seafood, they also do poke, sushi, coconut shrimp, prawn cocktail and fritto misto.)

Appealed to, our waitress — with lots of time on her hands on a slow Sunday evening — suggested the American Kobe flap "Tagliata" ($12.50) as a second course. There was no need to ask what my husband would be having; I'd known as soon as I saw that fresh Kumamoto oysters are on the menu ($8.75).

Tagliata means carved or cut, and this dish is based on a classic Italian street food — thinly sliced lean beef is rubbed with olive oil, grilled over an open flame, then drizzled with herbed oil. Here, Loperfido uses a "beef flap," a richly flavored loin cut, and American-raised Kobe-style beef, currently a restaurant darling (they also do mini Kobe burgers with avocado, $8.50). Despite its Italian roots, the treatment is strictly all-American. The dish begins with thick steak fries, stacked square like Lincoln Logs forming a fort tower, enclosing a cache of a Thousand Islands-style dip and roofed with the medium-rare steak slices. Deeply impregnated with smoke, the steak melted in the mouth and the fries just seemed to dematerialize.

The Kumamotos were capped with three flavor notes: Bloody Mary granita, cucumber sorbet and ginger tobiko (salted flying fish roe). You get just four of them, but each morsel rocks your world with tiny explosions of texture and flavor.

Also on our server's recommendation, we indulged in a shared portion of Loperfido's signature nocciolato ($11.95), a warm souffle oozing chocolate ganache — a very good idea, indeed.

Food and drink aren't the only draw at Pearl. There are also TVs tuned to sports and music videos — including, as my husband reported after a wide-eyed tour of the men's room, TV screens fronting each urinal. (I immediately ran off to the ladies room and was disappointed to find nothing behind the toilet stall door but a purse hook.) Our server said she sometimes loses entire tables of gents to the lavatory; "I'll think they've left when they're just all inside there watching the game."

Having expected little of a place where, let's face it, liquor is the primary lure, I was more than impressed with the food at Pearl. Those who prefer plate-lunch-size plates won't agree, but, to me, this is good value. The servings are generous by small-plate standards and the quality of food, service and presentation fine-dining high.

So if you, like me, are delighted to see the dining options at Ala Moana expanding in an upward direction, go check it out.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.