A fresh Fraîche in the works

Not yet open a year and Fraîche restaurant in Culver City is already set to expand, with a Santa Monica location.

Husband-and-wife chef-owners Jason and Miho Travi aren’t taking any time off to celebrate their first restaurant’s success. Jason Travi said he and his partners hope to open the as-yet-unnamed (“trying to get four people to come up with a name is about impossible”) eatery by the end of the year.

Travi wouldn’t give out the address, but they’ve found a spot “near the beach,” in a locale that the city is in the process of designating a historic building. “That will make it take longer,” he said. “Every restaurant opens late. That’s just the way it is, but I hate being off by more than six months.”

As for the food, “it’s going to be more Italian. All Italian,” Travi said. “Pizza. There are other things that I want to do that I can’t do here. Pizza is one of them.” Miho Travi, Fraîche’s pastry chef, will do the desserts, also Italian.

Like the Travis aren’t busy enough? “I’m looking at my partners as if they’re totally insane,” admitted Travi. But he’s not complaining. “My whole master plan is that I do the first two months at the new place, then go back to Fraîche four nights a week.”

In the meantime, the Travis are headed to Italy in April “to do some R&D.” Maybe they can score some R&R, too.

Fish, fish, goat?

IF you’re looking for a new restaurant whose name ends in “fish,” you don’t have to cast your net far. Paperfish? Red Fish? Luckyfish? Fish which?

Two of them are in Beverly Hills (the neighborhood that already sports a Crazy Fish). Joachim Splichal’s contemporary seafood restaurant Paperfish opened in November in Beverly Hills in the space that formerly housed Maple Drive. And just a few weeks ago, Luckyfish opened on Canon Drive. If you’re already mixed up by the fish frenzy, it doesn’t help that the phone number for Luckyfish just happens to be the old number for Maple Drive. Luckyfish co-owner Lee Maen and his colleagues discovered this shortly after they installed the phones at their kaiten (sushi conveyor belt) restaurant and in quick succession got two calls from people looking for Maple Drive.

And then there’s Red Fish, which opened in Simi Valley on the heels of Paperfish. “ We also wanted to serve steaks -- we got the idea that ‘red fish’ is also a play on words that you could have red meat,” says partner Bill Chait. Hmm. Red meat plus fish equals Red Fish? Got it. Sort of.

(Now there’s talk of SugarFish by Sushi Nozawa in Marina del Rey. But you can probably count on no Fraîchefish.)

Bucking the trend is Goat, Steven Arroyo’s latest concept. Restaurateur Arroyo says the La Brea Avenue location (formerly his Happi Songs Asian Tavern) impressed him as gritty and fast and therefore mountain-goat-like. OK. On the menu? Goat confit, fried goat cheese with figs, and maybe some goat cheese ice cream.

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Amy Scattergood

and Leslee Komaiko

Small bites

* A new sausage spot has opened in the Valley, with pork veal, lamb, turkey, venison, ostrich and buffalo “designer” sausages. Meanwhile, for hot dogs, the Stand has opened a new Westwood location. Brats Bros. Gourmet Grill, 13456 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 986-4020, www.bratsbrothers.com. The Stand, 1116 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 443-0400, www.thestandlink.com.

* Mexican restaurant La Fonda, complete with live mariachi performances, resurfaces at a new location on Wilshire. 2501 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 224-1900, www.lafondala.com.