Ritz Cafe Loses Its Accent

“We’re going to throw out all that old Cajun/Creole stuff,” says San Francisco-based restaurateur Sam Duvall, whose Ritz Cafe on Pico Boulevard has been one of our best local exponents of the Louisiana culinary idiom lately. “Cajun/Creole is over. It’s really over. And we want to make a change while we still have a good customer base.”

The change is taking place even as we speak. Subtle redecoration has been going on at the Ritz for some weeks--repainting, new lighting, additional banquettes, etc. “We want to make the place look a little less like a big sea of tables,” says Duvall, “but still keep that sort of cafe/La Coupole feeling.” The menu, meanwhile, is changing more dramatically: Brian Whitmer, whose numerous credits include a stint as head chef at New York’s acclaimed Le Montrachet, is now in charge of the kitchen, and he has been introducing new dishes weekly--in what Duvall calls an “American bistro” style. “A lot of the old blackened-fish people have been trying some of the new stuff and liking it,” he adds hopefully.

DINE ALONG WITH MICH: The 1988 Guide Michelin for France has just been published--one new three-star establishment has been added, one has been demoted and one has been deleted completely. The new trois-etoile s is L’Ambroisie on the Place des Vosges in Paris--a very pretty and very good restaurant, and one that I reviewed favorably in these pages not long ago--but a restaurant that I’m frankly not quite certain should have been elevated to three-star status so soon (especially when the more deserving Guy Savoy still has to be content with two stars). Pere Bise in Talloires, which lost its third star in 1983 and then regained it in 1985, has lost it again. And Louis Outhier’s highly acclaimed L’Oasis in La Napoule, on the French Riviera, has been dropped completely because Outhier announced that he is about to close the place. Among the new two-star places in the ’88 Michelin are the (to me) overrated L’Arpege in Paris and Le Louis XV, the restaurant in the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo--whose chef, Alain Ducasse, is one of the hottest young culinary talents in France today. The excellent Maison Blanche in Paris has gained entry-level recognition with one star. It deserves two.

The other important restaurant guide in France, the Guide Gault-Millau, which uses a 20-point rating system instead of awarding stars, has for its part promoted the idiosyncratic Lou Mazuc in Laguiole and the superlative Comme Chez Soi in Brussels to its “super- toque “ 19.5 / 20 level. Other promotions of note include those of the aforementioned Guy Savoy in Paris, Boyer in Reims, Grand Hotel du Lion d’Or in Romorantin, Apicius in Ghent (Belgium) and Stucki/Restaurant Bruderholz in Basel (which I reviewed Feb. 28), all of them elevated from 18 / 20 to 19 / 20. By way of comparison with the Michelin ratings noted above, incidentally, Gault-Millau gives 17 / 20 to L’Ambroisie, 16 / 20 to Pere Bise, 17 / 20 to L’Arpege, 18 / 20 to Le Louis XV, and 16 / 20 to La Maison Blanche. L’Oasis is unrated, but listed, with a brief obituary.

MISCELLANY: And speaking of Le Louis XV, its chef, Alain Ducasse, will join such other culinary heavyweights as Joachim Splichal, Michel Richard, Jimmy Schmidt and Jean-Louis Palladin at the Newport Harbor Art Museum’s “Art of Dining II” banquet next Sunday at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach. The Museum benefit event begins with a champagne reception at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $250 per person. Call (714) 759-1122 for details.