It was all very cozy and discreet. No shouting. No trampling. Last night at Ristorante i Ricchi, President Bush proved that he can still eat in peace in a public place. The maitre d' Gastone Zampieri -- hair in place, palms dry -- was standing at attention. He looked composed, but edgy. Out of the blue -- or maybe from the bar -- a woman came up to him. She had some questions. She wanted to know about parking. "Do you know where the valet is?" she asked. His face sunk to the terra-cotta floor. Not now. Not this ... now. What Zampieri knew -- and the woman didn't -- was that in five seconds George and Barbara Bush would be getting out of their limousine and walking through the doors of I Ricchi, heading straight for him. The president, determined to keep up his old easygoing lifestyle, has said that nothing was going to stop him -- or Barbara -- from impromptu restaurant hopping. And nothing has. Bush held an umbrella over his wife's head as they walked across the wet pavement, followed by a handful of Secret Service agents. They came as guests of former Bush speech writer Vic Gold and his wife Dale for dinner in a semiprivate back room at I Ricchi. Inside the month-old restaurant on 19th Street NW -- once the other dinner guests looked up in utter amazement to see him -- there was a spontaneous burst of applause. Probably realizing he was among admirers, the president walked about the nearly full dining room of 100 people or so and shook 10 hands. Then he and Barbara -- wearing her blue "swearing-in" coat by Bill Blass -- walked on to dinner. They ate a totally Tuscan meal, a fixed menu including antipasto, Misto Griglia Toscana (mixed grilled meats) and biscotti di Prato (almond cookies). They joined a party of 12: former Redskin Larry Brown, former Bush press secretary Pete Teeley and his wife Valerie, former Nixon counsel Richard Moore and his wife Esther, Washingtonian food critic Robert Shoffner and the Gold children Stephen, Paige, Jamie and Terry. "I've served Ronald Reagan," said their waiter Ralph Johnson. "You don't do anything special," he said. "The best service is invisible." Owner Christianne Ricchi also believes in invisibility. "We just wanted him to feel comfortable," she said. "As we want all our guests to feel." Zampieri said he served the queen of England once when he worked in London. "The Secret Service? Yes, it's the same with her." Only the Secret Service -- eight or more of them lurking around in Burberry raincoats and plastic ear radios -- added a tinge of weirdness. A couple of them tried to look as if they weren't actually blocking the entrance to Bush's back room. But all they had to worry about were the many diners who found it necessary to use the bathroom -- often. It just so happened to be located extremely near the seat of power. "You mean you didn't get frisked?" one woman asked her dinner partner following his toilette. "No, but they look at you pretty hard," he replied, "to make sure you don't take a left instead of a right." Guests arriving at the restaurant after the president were clueless. Newsman Al Friendly walked in with his wife Pi and Pamela Harriman -- both women cuddling mink coats. "Ohhhhhhhh, really?" said Harriman when told Bush was in the back. "No! We didn't know that!" said Pi Friendly, looking out the window at some milling Secret Service. "So that's what that is all about." Three people waiting at the bar -- David Carmen, Ann Jones and Terrie Henry -- said they figured out something was up, and then found out they'd be dining under the same roof as the president. "It's really unbelievable that the guy can come out, and have dinner, and it's barely noticeable," said Carmen. "I think it's great." It probably wasn't so great, though, for the 15 members of the press who weren't allowed inside. Under umbrellas and across the street under the drippy awning of the Palm restaurant, they waited for the president to polish off his biscotti and go home.