DINOSAUR UNDER GLASS : Is Elegant Dining an Endangered Species?

“I’m afraid that fine dining may be dying in Los Angeles,” says the owner of one of this city’s most elegant establishments as he surveys his increasingly empty restaurant. Some of his colleagues worry that he might be right.

And yet the restaurant business has never been better. More money is being spent in restaurants in California than in any other state; the total will reach almost $20 billion this year. That is almost twice as much as will be spent in the second hungriest state in the Union, New York. (Texas, the third, spends slightly less than New York.)

But although we may be spending more of our money in restaurants than people in other parts of the country, we are also spending it differently. We are moving away from the elegant European restaurant of the past as California restaurants develop a style all their own. More casual than costly, this new California restaurant is becoming so popular that many local restaurateurs are beginning to fear for the future of formal dining.

It is certainly alive and well in New York, where fine dining made a fine splash this year as European restaurants opened with a vengeance. The big new restaurants of the year were Le Bernardin, Lafayette, Brive, Aurora, Palio, QV--every one of them an elegant venue where the women in winter come wrapped up in furs and a man lacking a jacket and a substantial line of credit would not feel comfortable. Meanwhile, our coast was going casual; you could carry the cash to pay the bill in any of the year’s most successful new restaurants (Rebecca’s, Silvio’s, Celestino and Cha Cha Cha), and if you walked in wearing jeans you would not be alone.

While French chefs were busily establishing a beachhead on the East Coast, the opposite was taking place out West. Patrick Terrail closed Ma Maison, once the glitziest and most successful French restaurant in town, to open . . . the Hollywood Diner on Fairfax. Many people who once worked in his expensive French restaurant set up shop at the modest little Pasteria on Melrose Avenue.

Meanwhile, the city’s best new French restaurant didn’t open--it closed. “I don’t know if there’s a chance to have a serious French restaurant in Los Angeles anymore,” said Joachim Splichal bitterly when he turned the key on Max au Triangle. A few months later, after a successful foray to the other coast (where he was the consultant to QV), he had a more thoughtful analysis.

“Five years ago,” he said, “what was good in town--Michael’s, L’Ermitage, L’Orangerie, etc.--were all expensive. Since then so many interesting, less expensive places came up that people are no longer attracted to spending $120 for dinner so often. At the same time there has been a tremendous development in the California cuisine direction; it pushed out the more expensive places. Now there are so many choices where you can eat well and still not spend a tremendous amount of money.”

But the California style is more than a matter of simple economics. Consider the prominent businessman who ticked off a list of his favorite restaurants--casual every one--and then said simply, “I don’t want to dress up when I go out to eat. In New York you have to wear a suit, but here it’s different. If I have to put on a suit to go out, I’d rather stay home.”

Casual clothes may be one part of the equation; unfancy food may be another. “I just can’t eat rich food the way I used to” is a cry heard all over town. But while Angelenos profess their undying affection for fish (preferably grilled), swoon over salads and cringe at cream, nowhere is there a greater appreciation for dessert. Diners who wouldn’t dream of ordering poulet a la creme think nothing of finishing a meal with creme brulee . And if health is such a major concern, why this sudden affection for Cajun cuisine and the weighty food of the ‘50s?

“Here,” said Splichal, “everything is geared to America. In New York restaurants are more geared to European trends. There has been a tremendous influence of French restaurants opened in the last 18 months, and they do extremely well. Here in L.A. the trend is more towards accessible dining than toward a dining experience.” He admits that he doesn’t know why this is so. Shaking his head he said: “If I would know the answer I would be rich.”

The answer, it seems to me, is that the California style has less to do with what people don’t want than with what they do want. These restaurants don’t exist simply because Californians are cheapskates who hate to dress up. The California style was created to give us what we most passionately want. And what people in Los Angeles want, more than anything, is to feel young.

Go to Spago or Rebecca’s or the City restaurant any night of the week. The food is good but the roar is deafening. The customers--lined up at the door, shouting at each other--are not here because they can’t afford the calm elegance of L’Ermitage or L’Orangerie or Michael’s. The people whose Rolls-Royces nuzzle each other in the parking lot probably spent more on washing those cars than they will on dinner. They are not trying to save money; they have come here because these are the places to be.

And they are the places to be because in a town that manufactures dreams, being old is out. Why else would 60-year-old people dress up in tight pants, dye their hair blond and have personal fitness trainers torture them daily? And if these restaurants are a little bit noisy--all the better. In a place where conversation is impossible and the most repeated word is “What?” aural acuity is not an advantage.

Meanwhile, the quiet European-style restaurants--where the service is good and the wine lists are excellent--are not as full as they once were. In a town where nobody wants to be like his parents, these formal restaurants are a reminder of the past. They are restaurants for grown-ups in a town that relishes youth.

How well are they doing? Ask most restaurateurs and they will tell you that business has never been better. But industry insiders say that business is fairly flat.

So as an experiment I picked a group of restaurants at random and asked a friend to call up one Friday at 4 p.m. to try to make 7:30 reservations for that evening. She got an immediate yes from La Toque, Le St. Germain, Michael’s and Valentino. L’Ermitage asked if she would mind coming at 7. L’Orangerie was unable to accommodate her until 9:45.

She then tried the noisy new places; most were able to offer her a table--provided she was willing to wait to eat dinner until 10:45 (at Trumps), or to choose between dinner at 6 or 11 (Rebecca’s). Cha Cha Cha offered a reservation at 6. City had just had a convenient cancellation at 8, but neither 72 Market Street nor Chinois on Main had anything available after 6:30.

Since this was during the traditionally slow holiday season (a time when many restaurants close), no restaurant was having a peak period. But business was clearly better in the California-style restaurants than in their more traditional counterparts.

“People have forgotten how to dine,” said restaurateur Al Levy, “they merely eat.” He looked sadly back to the “good old days” when people in Los Angeles were devoted to elegant dining and dressing up for dinner. “The diamonds they loved to display in gilded cafes,” he sighed, “are now in safety deposit boxes.”

Sound familiar? It should. Levy’s lament was made more than 50 years ago, when he ran one of L.A.’s oldest restaurants. And as history was to prove, he was wrong. Fine dining wasn’t dead--it had only gone on vacation.

In a town whose annual eating budget is larger than the gross national product of many countries, it is probably safe to assume that one of these days history will repeat itself.