Before Chic, Lou G. Siegal’s

        An eon ago, when fashion designers were nameless lads toiling for the advancement of cloak-and-suiters… there was Lou G. Siegel's. Before the $30 autographed chiffon square… before La Grenouille and the Pernod-doused rognon… there was Lou G. Siegel and the kasha varnishke.
   
        Lou Sigel's is to Elaine's as the stitch is to the word…the obligatory luncheon fress. Uptown the egos feed. Here the Garment Center bon vivant wallows in haute kosher delicacies of wondrous provenance. Here is the nostalgia of stuffed derma (an intoxicating and pasty pâté of flour, fat, grated onions and spices)… gefilte fish (a haimish earthbound quenelle of ground pike and carp or whitefish, garni)…lungen and miltz stew (a rather bland and wholesome pot-au-feu of tongue and spleen) served here with kasha varnishkes (pasta shells laced with crumbly kasha -- boring to me but much loved by the Kultur Maven)…and the ethereal matzo ball, egg and chicken fat that gives broth its raison d'être and has fostered two schools of matzo-ball thinking: Gossamer Haute vs. Primitive Plaster Lumpen. Lou Siegel's serves a smooth silky beauty. Perversely, I favor a more leaden solidity.

        Lou G. Siegel Inc., Est. 1917, got a facelift in 1969, but the dining room is spectacularly uncharming except for the memorabilia of lunch served backstage at The Palace to Eddie Cantor and Georgie Jessel, immortalized in photo blowup, and a tinted portrait of the late Lou G. looking like a spin-off of Leslie Howard. On Knicks nights come the guys with big lapels. On Sunday, Harry Hershfield or Jackie Mason piling 'em in the aisles with haute jape… and still, Georgie Jessel with the latest beauty from a cast of thousands. At lunch, the rag traffic: Abe Schrader, Rudi Gernreich, Chester Weinberg, Mollie Parnis and Adele Simpson, Louis Stulberg… printing hawks wooing textile merchants, knitwear sheiks with sulky showroom girls… the politique politicos, Rockefeller and Lefkowitz, in season… and "that guy who used to be at the U.N. …what's his name? Arthur Goldberg."
   
        "And so where is Ben today?"
   
        "He's by his analyst… he's up to his knees in midis."
   
        The kitchen is kosher… no butter, milk or cream on the premises. Out back is a full-time mesgiah -- a supervisor, "they have a tight little union" -- to make sure everything is… strictly. There is a slightly dimmer grill for really serious drinking and a counter that opens at 11:45. The waiters are of the Jewish Mother genre, especially the Puerto Rican benevolent yenta who scolded a millinerymacher for gazing too lingeringly at a leggy blonde. "That's not for you, Mr. Kaplan. That's a shiksa."
   
        The bread is real. There are pickles to curl your toes and coleslaw on the table… omelettes from $1.50, salad platters from $1.75, sandwiches and delicatessen, entrées at lunch from $2.50 -- stuffed cabbage ($2.95), goulash ($3.50), chicken à la king ($3.25), superb spicy franks and beans ($2.95). Dinner à la carte, entrées from $3.25, or table d'hôte, $4.75 and up. The sweet and sour meatballs ($2.95) are a Wednesday favorite. Thin-sliced pot roast on rye, dabbed with zesty horseradish ($2.95), is another winner. Surprisingly, the chopped chicken liver ($1.75) needed doctoring -- a dash of chicken fat from the emergency side order on the table. Vegetables are watery and dull, roasts are mostly bland and pedestrian. And the pastrami on the assorted-cold-cuts platter ($3.50) had been sliced too far ahead… dry edges curled. Beautiful apple pie (75 cents) was… tasteless. The cherry, better. Special dessert of the day: jelly donuts.
   
       On Friday, the Eve of Sabbath, there is no smoking… and homemade tchulent ($4.50), like cassoulet toulousain -- traditionally a hearty bean dish -- prepared before the day of rest and left to bake slowly overnight for Saturday dinner. The Orthodox, forbidden to carry money after sundown Friday, may dine at Lou Siegel's… and pay later. Only once has the house been burned by a Sabbath check-dodger. And perhaps he just forgot.
   
        But the pride of the Siegel kitchen is the lamb tongue and calf's feet -- rare gems of the haute kosher palate. Siegel victualers scrounge the country to come up with enough to feed the demand. "We can get all the lamb's heads we want," manager Eddie Share explains. "But nobody wants to sell tongues anymore…it's the labor." Cruel affluence. Feet are similarly elusive…but enough are cornered to offer hot steamed calf's feet ($3.50) on Thursday and jellied calf's feet ($1.50) every day. For innocent romantics who imagine calf's foot jelly a shimmering golden aspic toted by a loving old retainer to our consumptive heroine, comes the disenchantment. Siegel's celebrated version is a rubbery slab with bits of egg and marrow -- grainy, fatty… a sophisticated fancy that leaves me cold.
   
        Overheard at the next table:
   
        "How are the kasha varnishkes today, waiter?"
   
        The waiter shrugs.
   
        "So…bring me a swatch."