Chez Cary’s Haute Cuisine 20 Years Later

Red-velvet winged chairs. White-glove service. Strolling violins.

A footstool for milady, a cognac-dipped cigar for the gentleman. A long-stemmed pink rose on the table, an individual petal under each glass.

Welcome to the Chez.

A Frenchman might wince at the use of the preposition chez as a noun. But perhaps an evening at Chez Cary in Orange, which celebrated its 20th anniversary with a Roaring ‘20s party Sunday night, would help smooth over the grammatical trespass.

An evening in the hands of Sean Lewis, named the Southern California Restaurant Writers’ Manager/Maitre d’ of the Year in 1984, might induce the offended party to forgive and forget the matter of grammar entirely.

And perhaps a seven-course Escoffier-type meal at the restaurant, one of 75 in the country to receive the highest rating in Simon and Schuster’s “Best Restaurants of America,” would have that Frenchman dangling participes all over his china.

Served at the party, each with an appropriate wine, were halibut mousse with three caviars; pheasant consomme in flaky puff pastry; stuffed quail in truffle sauce; champagne sorbet; elk medallions with wild mushrooms and lingonberries; endive and radicchio salad, and raspberry mousse-filled chocolate cup.

And There Was More

(For those who were able, there were also anniversary cake and coffee, and pralines and a 20-year-old California port served in bizarre glasses shaped something like a mouse; the elk came with an almost 20-year-old, lovely Chateau Cos d’Estournel.)

Lewis credits Chez Cary’s success at least partly to the service and the longevity of the staff.

“Precision, total precision,” said Lewis, who has the kind of soothing voice (not unlike that of Hal, the computer, in the movie “2001”) for which therapists might give their right arm. “It can never let up. That’s what built the Chez Cary. And once these awards get up on the wall, it becomes more difficult to keep them there.

“I’ve been here going on 14 years, the average employee seven or eight. We feel a magic at the Chez. Even if he found that he had to, it would be difficult for an employee to actually walk away from the Chez. We hope that magic reflects on to the guests.”

A few of the 100 or so guests on hand for the $125-a-plate celebration reflected on two decades of Chez Cary.

“How has it changed? It hasn’t,” said Geril Muller, a former manager of the Chez. He left just before Christmas ’72 to open Ambrosia, a success for many years in Newport Beach, but ultimately a failure in Costa Mesa’s Town Center.

“There are about 3,000 restaurants in Orange County,” Muller said. “There are only three or four where you would take a client who might make you a million dollars--I would say Chez Cary, the Cellar, Gemmell’s and Antoine. The rest might be good places to eat. But there’s a big difference between eating and dining. Dining means ambiance and good service. Tonight is indicative of what fine dining can and should be.”

Not much has changed, according to Chez Cary hostess Edie Mehl.

First Visit Recalled

“A few of our older guests have unfortunately passed away in the 16 years I’ve been here,” she said. “And there’s a new menu in honor of the anniversary.”

Columnist Vida Dean recalled her first visit to the Chez.

“I remember the table--we sat there for five hours,” Dean said.

“I was sitting here, talking, of course, and the waiter tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and he held out a bowl of spinach. I thought, ‘Oh, my, what do I do now?’ I said, ‘Oh, very nice! That’s certainly fresh-looking spinach!’ I mean, I’d never had a waiter show me his spinach before.

“Everything was so elegant, you know. Little boxes of matches that had your name written on it in gold. . . . “

Dean’s husband, Jim, was impressed by the fact that his car was waiting the moment he left the restaurant. “You didn’t have to tell anybody you were leaving,” he said. “They just knew.”

Also at the party were Carl Karcher, of Carl’s Jr. fame, and his wife, Margaret.

“We’ve been coming here since before it became Chez Cary,” said Karcher. “It was called Pariscene at that time.

“It’s always had a certain charm; it’s a place you come to do a little reminiscing. And it’s consistent--good food, good service. We came here for the 25th anniversary of the company, and my wife and I came here to celebrate my 50th birthday. We might come to Chez Cary six to eight times a year, but it’s always an evening out.”

Karcher did remember one unpleasant day at the Chez.

“I came here for lunch one day with my attorney,” he recalled. “We were going to let a certain gentleman go that day. He’d been with me five years, but he was undermining me. So he ordered his New York steak, and then I said, ‘I’m afraid we’re here today to let you know this is your last day.’

“Well, he never did put his fork in the steak, and I felt bad about that.”

Film, fashion and furniture will be among the subjects addressed at “International Style,” a one-day symposium to be held Saturday in the UC Irvine Nelson Research Auditorium.

Speakers at the event, which is co-sponsored by Art Direction and Design in Orange County and UCI University Extension, will include Peter Harrison, British graphic design, 9 a.m.; John West, Japanese design, 10:05 a.m., and Susan Torrey Barber, Australian cinema, 11:10 a.m.

Peter Shire will speak on Italian furniture design at 1 p.m., and Agi Berliner on French fashion design at 2 p.m. The program will conclude with Jeff Gorman and Gary Johns, who will speak on American advertising at 3 p.m. A cocktail reception will be held at the Studio Cafe in Corona del Mar after the symposium.

Registration is at 8:30 a.m. The fee, which covers lunch, is $40 for Art Direction and Design members, $55 for non-members. For details, call (714) 250-4450.