A Tumble for Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed, the innovative contempo-Tex-Mex restaurant that opened earlier this year in Beverly Hills, has closed.

Chef Elka Gilmore (formerly of Camelions in Santa Monica) and restaurateur Paul Fleming (who operates Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Beverly Hills, Arizona and Hawaii) shut the business Oct. 24.

“Paul and I agreed that we were going in different directions in our concept of the restaurant,” Gilmore said, “and I decided that I didn’t want to operate it anymore. Closing seemed like the best thing to do, and I have to say that I’m glad we made that decision. I had a great time at Tumbleweed, and I learned more than I ever thought I’d know about running a restaurant. It was a great experience. But now I’m feeling burned out. I’m just going to try to collect myself for a while.”

She’s undertaking the latter task as temporary chef at Catherine: A Champagne Bistro on La Brea, next door to the wholesale bakery Nite Owl, which she opened recently with Dana Farkas.

Gilmore has vague plans to open a seafood restaurant, but for now she says she’s “trying to remember how to make French food again, and get cilantro off the brain.”

Fleming doesn’t mention differences of concept; rather, he says simply that the place just never became as successful as it should have. “We had some management problems at the restaurant,” he continues, “but the concept was great and the food was great and, with maybe one exception, we got great reviews. It’s really kind of a mystery to me as to why it didn’t work. You know, everybody and his chicken wants to open a restaurant these days, but I have to say that if a team like myself and Elka can’t make it work, a lot of other people out there ought to really think twice before trying it.”

RUSSIAN AWAY: Another restaurant casualty of recent weeks is Mischa’s, the 11 1/2-year-old Sunset Boulevard cabaret-cum-eatery that for years served the best Russian food in town. Proprietor Mischa Markarian blames recently enacted neighborhood parking restrictions, rising insurance costs and ever-increasing government regulation of the food service business.

“It’s getting so that a restaurateur is expected to be not just a kind of surrogate parent and personal adviser to his customers,” Markarian says, “but also an FBI agent and IRS inspector and who knows what else.”

Thus, he says, when he got a firm offer for the place (from the New York-based firm that operates the trendy M. K. restaurant/disco complex in Manhattan), he took it.

Markarian has no plans to open another eating place, he says, but, he adds, “I’m keeping my eyes open. Maybe I’ll do something on a smaller scale, or even something with high-quality fast food. But whatever it is, I’ll make sure the parking is there first.”

OGDEN OFF ON A LARK: Bradley Ogden, executive chef at San Francisco’s posh Campton Place Hotel since the establishment opened in late 1983 and thus one of the less peripatetic American chefs, has announced that he will leave the hotel at last, next year. He will take over the Lark Creek Inn in the Marin County town of Larkspur.

His partner in the new venture is restaurant consultant Michael Dellar, formerly vice president of the Spectrum Foods chain.

Ogden envisions an American country inn, complete with wood-burning ovens and outdoor patio. “We’ll do lots of wood-roasted fish and fowl,” he says, “but also things like breads baked in crocks, American versions of cassoulet, family-style platters of various things, maybe something like a New England boiled dinner served in a Japanese steamer for three or four people, even hamburgers. The menu will change daily, and I’ll be dealing with lots of local farms on a one-to-one basis, even more than I’ve done at Campton Place.”

He says he will remain at the hotel at least until the end of February, perhaps even helping to open the restaurant at its sister hostelry, Checkers, scheduled to go into operation early next year in downtown Los Angeles. And, he adds, he might retain some kind of consultancy relationship with Campton Place even after the Lark Creek Inn opens.

HOT DATES: The wines of Raymond are featured at Tamayo in East Los Angeles this Wednesday, with a five-course dinner prepared by chef Jesus Naranjo. The charge is $40 per person. . . . Gilliland’s in Santa Monica presents prize bottles from Grgich Hills to accompany a special $55, four-course New Mexican-style dinner created by Steve Garcia, co-proprietor of St. Estephe. . . .