Ken Frank: Moving On

I wrote last week in this space of the impending demise of La Couronne in Pasadena--a demise whose message seems to be that the Los Angeles area might not be the best possible market right now for serious cooking of La Couronne’s upscale French style. Further intimations of that possibility come this week with the news that Ken Frank’s resolutely and professionally French La Toque, on Sunset Boulevard, will disappear sometime this summer. The good news, though, is that in this case the restaurant won’t be meeting a demise so much as experiencing a rebirth.

“I’ve been running La Toque under Chapter 11 (bankruptcy protection) for two years,” Frank says, “and I think I’ve established that what I have here is a very good restaurant that just doesn’t make any money. People simply don’t want my kind of food as much in Los Angeles anymore. They want to eat out more often, which means they want to pay less, and they want lighter food. They also like it when what they eat comes from California instead of France, and they like to get out of the traditional French format of appetizer, main course and dessert--at least most of the time. What happened is that we’ve become everybody’s favorite restaurant for anniversaries and birthdays, but that means that people come in three times a year instead of three times a month. I’ve done all I can do with the old La Toque format. Ultimately, I have to pay attention to what the people want.”

Frank’s plan is to continue running La Toque until sometime this summer, and then close for two to three months for what he describes as “an extensive, complete remodel.” The resulting restaurant, whose name Frank will not yet reveal, will consist of one big dining room on two levels, wrapped around a glassed-in kitchen. The menu will be written completely in English, and average checks will drop, Frank predicts, from their current average of $70 or so to around $40. The food will be, he says, “more casual, more Californian.”

Although Frank has expressed his lack of interest in California cuisine on numerous previous occasions, he stresses that his impending Californization is not a sellout. “I’m growing, moving on,” he says. “This will give me the chance to do something new and exciting.”

REDFISH IN THE SUNSET: Blackened redfish, arguably the single most popular new American dish of the 1980s, might very well be a thing of the past--not because, as I have noted in this column before, few chefs bother to really blacken the fish (or any other blackened thing) anymore, but because the fish itself might well become unavailable.

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, fearing that local stocks of the creature (also called red drum or channel bass) are in danger of extinction due to increased consumer demand in recent years, has banned recreational fishing of redfish until June 1 and commercial fishing until Sept. 1 in state waters. Since 1986, the commercial catching of redfish in federally controlled waters has been forbidden. Mississippi remains the only Gulf state in whose waters the fish may be taken commercially--and its annual production is relatively low. One chef who isn’t particularly worried by the redfish ban, ironically, is Paul Prudhomme, the man who invented the dish in the first place. Prudhomme, in fact, stopped blackening redfish two years ago and now uses mostly tuna in its place. It blackens better anyway, he says.

SPECIALS: Rockenwagner’s in Venice is currently serving a Spargelkarte-- a white asparagus menu--which is a springtime tradition in western Germany and Alsace. Five or six asparagus-based dishes are offered nightly--for instance, asparagus lasagna, asparagus-tip salad and a cornucopia of white and green asparagus with Maui onion soubise and prosciutto. The special menu, served in addition to the usual Rockenwagner carte, will continue, says chef Hans Rockenwagner, “as long as we can get good white asparagus for a reasonable price.” . . . The Highlands Inn in Carmel hosts its second annual Masters of Food & Wine festival, Wednesday through April 18, with the participation of such chefs as Bruce Auden of the Fairmount Restaurant in San Antonio and San Franciscans Annie Sommerville of Greens, Jeremiah Tower of Stars and Hubert Keller of Fleur de Lys. Call (408) 624-3801 for details. . . . And Glendale Community College hosts the Southern California Culinary Guild’s Career Day, April 23 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., which offers panel talks on food styling, culinary training, food writing and related subjects. The $40-per-person tab includes a box lunch. Monday is the deadline for registration. Call Beverly Nickerson at (818) 330-8217 for last-minute additions.