To dine at the Anaheim White House Restaurant is to experience a fashion show of food. Each dish arrives at the table styled like a model on the catwalk.

And, as with a ready-to-wear shoe in Paris or Milan, the most flamboyant dishes appear with such over-the-top flair that a casual chef might think, "But who would ever make that at home?"

Owner Bruno Serato will have none of that. To the Italian-born and French-trained restaurateur, dishes bear names like the Romero Gigli Salmon Chocolat or the Prada Rack of Lamb. His new cookbook, "Temptation at the White House," combines high fashion meals with shirtless male models. Fashion photographer Greg Gorman, Serato's friend, took part in the book with four photos - including the cover.

All of it is intended to spread Serato's gospel - that there is no line between couture and cuisine, and that one of the biggest entertaining sins you can commit is to present a poorly dressed plate to your guest.

"If you go to a good steak-house, you get a good filet, but it's just thee on the plate, Serato says one night at his restaurant where he'd invited several friends to celebrate the publication of "Temptation." "Here, you get a steak, it looks special."

"You put them side by side, maybe their filet taste better than mine - but they're gong to choose mine every time."

As the courses arrived, Serato talked about how the host at home can present a more fashionable plate, while his guest oohed and ahhed over the style with which their senses were sated.

Small touches

This is how far Serato had gone for fashion - even the butter on the table is styled. "Every time I used to see my butter on my table, I hate it," he explained. I think, "why don't I put sun-dried tomato's on my butter, to get a little but more visuality?"

It's that kind of thinking he hopes his menu and the cookbook will inspire for people at home, he says. "They don't have to use the same ingredient, but it gives them idea - to look at the plate and make the plate look better.

"You can take a zucchini or a cucumber, you slice it and put it all around the edge of the plate - your guest are going to think you're the best chef ever!" Serato says.

An appetizer like the Ferragamo Ahi Tuna Tartare comes to the table looking almost like a floral arrangement. The ahi is centered on the plate, with twin strands of curvy spaghetti lending a whimsical air, avocado cream and salmon caviar adding color, style, and of course, flavor.

It's like Giorgio Armani, who does a beautiful white dress on a lady, with a lovely red flower," Serato says of the little twists that pull an outfit, or a dish, together.


The Main Event

For main courses, Serato and the Anaheim White House pull out all the stops. Filet mignon with porcini mushrooms or gorgonzola sauce comes atop polenta with thin flatbreads sculpted into the shape of the Leaning of Pisa. Poached salmon with white chocolate mashed potatoes in a citrus beurre blanc arrive with butterflies created from tortillas perched around the plate.

"As you can see, it catches your eye as soon as the food gets to table," says Matteo Tabib of Irvine, another Italian raised food and fashion. "You can't just can't throw some food on the plate and expect the customers to like it. The presentation is very important." Again, the meals prepared by executive chef Eddie Meza and portrayed in "Temptations" should encourage and inspire the home chef, Serato says.

"If you don't have the Tower of Pisa, you can put a piece of rosemary on the plate," he says. "You don't have to have all the ingredients to make the plate look beautiful."

Finish with a flourish

A few hours after Serato and his friends sit down to eat, the conversation still flows like the Soave with and Tuscany red wine at the table. Dishes cleared, sumptuous desserts arrive - a banana tart with vanilla cream sauce with a sculptural decoration made of caramelized sugar, a flourless soufflé' with chocolate and vanilla sauce on top.

And then a tray bearing what Serato modestly describes as the "house dessert," which he named the "the Jackie O" after the most fashionable of first lady. Towers of caramelized and spun sugar rise from the tray, candles blaze on top, and all around are tiny treats - miniature lemon tarts and cream puffs, small crème brulees and chocolate-dipped strawberries, fresh raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. It's flashy finale to a grand meal, and like most everything else that Serato serves, as amazing to look at as it is to eat.

"The philosophy of everything I do here is that every plate is fashionable," he says, and if he has his way, one day all of your party plates will be, too.