CAL-FRENCH COMING TO BEV-GLEN

Two potentially important new eating places are soon to open on or near Beverly Glen Boulevard--a street not previously known for its gastronomic pleasures.

Up in the canyon, a mile or two north of Sunset, noted French chef Claude Segal--formerly of La Ciboulette in Paris and Ma Maison and Bistango here--has taken over the old Cafe Four Oaks and renamed it the Four Oaks Restaurant. Segal’s partners in the enterprise, which he hopes to have open by October, are his old mates from Bistango, floor manager Michel Blanchard and well-known local maitre d’ hotel /manager Henri Labadie.

Segal promises a “modern, contemporary French and Californian” menu. Like Bistango? “No, no, no,” he replies. And no pizza, either. “I’m sick and tired of pizza,” he avers. The 120-seat restaurant, which includes both an enclosed patio and some more free-form outdoor seating, will be open for dinner from Tuesday through Sunday and for both brunch and lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Down south a piece, on Little Santa Monica just west of Beverly Glen, Patrick Healy will soon open his own place, as yet unnamed. Healy, of course, is the superb American-born, French-loving soon-to-be-ex-chef at Colette in the Beverly Pavilion Hotel. His French wife, Sophie, who was the manager at Andre Surmain’s Le Feu Follet in Mougins and then assistant manager at our own Pastel, will run the dining room, and she and her husband will own the restaurant themselves, with only one investor with a minority share.

“It’s a whole new concept in California restaurants,” notes Healy. “No dentists or doctors as partners.” Healy’s menu will be part California contemporary (“with no French words”) and part traditional French (presumably with French words). The 100-seat restaurant, which Healy has redesigned and refurbished himself on the site of the old Patou’s (not Patout’s), known in its last days of life as Le Patelin, will serve only dinner to start.

SCRATCH ANOTHER RESTAURANT: Scratch in Santa Monica closed its doors July 20, though the kitchen and dining room remain open for private parties. As noted earlier in this column, Scratch proprietors Gail and Peter de Krassel have grandiose plans for several future projects--specifically a restaurant/supper club next to the carrousel on the Santa Monica Pier, to be called Rockfish, and a hotel, tentatively dubbed the Santa Monica Beach House, on the present site of Scratch. Spring of 1988 is now predicted as the opening date for the supper club, summer of ’89 for the hotel.

A restaurant under the name of Scratch will go back into the hotel, the De Krassels add, and they have hopes to place additional Scratchs in several other hotels around the country, under the aegis of the management group that will be in charge of their own establishment.

NEWS AND NOTES: Just opened in Santa Monica are the American Diner and La Dolce Yogurt, the latter serving not only yogurt (frozen and otherwise) but also sandwiches and hot entrees, and the former serving just about what you’d expect. Both are in the new Portofino Plaza at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. . . . Opening tomorrow is Mel ‘n’ Rose’s Coffee Shop on (get it?) Melrose, with the kitchen in the hands of Mark Hill, former executive chef at the Westwood Marquis Hotel. . . .

The Villa Nova in Newport Beach celebrated its 20th anniversary at its new location on July 31. The original Villa Nova, as we old-timers remember full well, was a landmark on the Sunset Strip for nearly 35 years before moving to Newport in 1967. . . . Le Monaco in Palos Verdes Estates has announced a new Sunday brunch, as has Le Crocodile Bistro in Newhall. . . .

Up Sonoma County way, the Chateau Souverain restaurant, at the winery of the same name, has reopened in Geyserville. . . . And Michel Cornu, former executive chef at the Auberge du Soleil in St. Helena, is now in charge of the kitchen at Zeppa, a restaurant in (yet again) Newport Beach.

CULINARY CALENDAR: Aashiana Cuisine of India in West L.A. and the Encino branch of Akbar will both celebrate Indian Independence Day today through Thursday, offering a special prix-fixe dinner at $29.95 per couple, with a free gift included. . . . If you’re getting tired of all those California winemaker’s dinners I keep writing about, you might be interested in the meal planned at Gilliland’s in Santa Monica this evening--a five-course, $45 repast to be accompanied by such dandy French bottles as 1985 Chateau de Beaucastel, Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc, 1985 Chablis “Butteaux” from Guy Robin and 1982 Chateau La Tour Carnet. . . .

And 72 Market St. in Venice (whose chef, Leonard Schwartz, is now in Osaka, creating a California-style menu for the first anniversary celebration of that city’s New Otani Hotel), has launched a series of informal Sunday evening concerts, beginning at 10 p.m. and accompanied by a new light supper menu.

SOMEONE’S IN THE KITCHEN: Saturday, 12 of the best-respected chefs in the country get together in the Napa Valley to cook a Summer Harvest Dinner. The $200-a-head dinner (a benefit for the American Institute of Wine and Food) at Beringer Vineyards is different than most multi-chef dinners in one respect: All the chefs are women. They include Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, Chicago’s Leslee Reis and Amy Ferguson of Baby Routh in Dallas as well as our own Mary Sue Milliken (City Restaurant) and Lydia Shire (Four Seasons Hotel).