August 6, 1986

WHERE the kitchen is concerned, one of the brightest stars in the Lone Star State is 34-year-old Stephan Pyles. This young chef has come a long way from his formal training in voice and piano. He has been praised from one coast to the other. I dined at his stylish dining establishment here, the Routh Street Cafe, sampling his golden gazpacho with chilies and shrimp tossed in chopped fresh coriander; honey-fried chicken with thyme and mint sauce; quail with goat cheese and black-eyed peas vinaigrette; blue-cornmeal muffins, and chocolate-pecan cake with tropical-fruit custard sauce. All that praise was not by any means undeserved adulation: Mr. Pyles raises Southwestern cuisine to the level of art. Co-owner of the Routh Street Cafe (pronounced ruth) with John Dayton, Mr. Pyles plans to open a second restaurant nearby this coming autumn with Mr. Dayton.

The Koch administration will propose that developers in Times Square be required to festoon new buildings with arrays of brightly lighted signs as flashy as anything on Broadway, the chairman of the City Planning Commission said yesterday. The proposal, which is to be formally presented to the commission next month, would affect Broadway and Seventh Avenue from 43d Street to 50th Street. It would require all new stores to have lighted signs, all new theaters lighted marquees and nameplates and all large new buildings the sort of giant animated super signs that for most of the century have marked the area as the ''Great White Way.'' The proposal also calls for setbacks in new buildings to be much lower and deeper than is now required. Planning officials said this would maintain a sense of light and air in the area and reduce the presence of shadows.

The OPEC Accord Gasoline prices could go back above $1 a gallon, some analysts said in assessing the impact of the OPEC agreement to curb oil production. The increase of 10 to 20 cents a gallon could show up by the end of the month, according to one analyst. But there was also abundant skepticism about OPEC's ability to enforce the agreement and about how much it could alter the underlying conditions that led to the sharp drop in oil prices. [ Page A1. ] In the southwestern United States, bankers, oilmen and executives had hopes that the worst of the oil-price slump might be over. [ D1. ] Fears of a renewed price slide after the two-month accord expires were expressed by some OPEC ministers. [ D1. ]

A Pennsylvania art collector said yesterday that he had purchased 240 previously unknown works by Andrew Wyeth that the artist had kept secret from everyone, including his wife, for the 15 years during which he painted them. The works include 4 in tempera, 67 watercolors and more than 100 drawings. They were made by Mr. Wyeth between 1970 and 1985 at his home in Chadds Ford, Pa. All but one depict a woman named Helga, whose identity is not public, in dozens of poses, indoors and out, in portrait and full-length, clothed and nude.

South Africa said today that it would impose economic countermeasures against black-ruled neighboring countries after the announcement of new economic sanctions against Pretoria by the Commonwealth. Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha said at a news conference in Pretoria that the Government would impose import licenses, a levy on goods traveling across the country and stricter border controls. Mr. Botha said millions of blacks in South Africa and several neighboring countries would suffer from a tightening of trade controls. He cited Zambia and Zimbabwe, which use South African railways and ports, and whose leaders support sanctions.