Young Chefs to Get Taste of Competition

If you want to learn how to be a chef, go to Europe--that’s the career advice would-be Wolfgang Pucks and Michel Richards typically receive. The reason? There just aren’t that many places in the U.S. that train chefs beyond the competent banquet/hotel level. “It’s an emptiness of education,” says Chez Melange co-owner Michael Franks, “especially in Los Angeles.”

Franks, like a lot of other food lovers, would like to change the culinary education scene. His contribution: the Young Chefs of the South Bay Competition, scheduled this year for April 8, at El Camino College. “I thought, Americans are always so competitive,” says Franks, who schedules special menus (e.g., Provence Prix Fixe, Grazing Prix Fixe) and wine tastings at his Redondo Beach restaurant year-round, “why not start the ball rolling with a contest for aspiring chefs?”

This is the second year Franks has held the competition that is open to South Bay high school students--each school sends a three-person team to prepare a three-course meal made with ingredients specified by the contest rules (sole stuffed with shrimp is this year’s entree course). Last year, Spago’s Wolfgang Puck and St. Estephe’s John Sedlar helped judge. This year, Sedlar, Kate Mantilini’s Marilyn Lewis, Chez Melange chef and co-owner Robert Bell and others will award the gold, silver and bronze medals that come with scholarship money (donated by American Express) for each member of the top three teams. All of the participants receive certificates and commemorative T-shirts donated by Nordstrom. The deadline for entry is this Wednesday.

THE DOMINO EFFECT: Somebody had to do it sooner or later. Domino’s Pizza mogul Tom Monaghan has announced that construction will begin next year on a, yes, Leaning Tower of Pizza--a 30-story skyscraper on a 15-degree rake, officially called Domino’s Tower. It’s to be erected just outside Ann Arbor, Mich., as the superpopular pizza firm’s new corporate headquarters. Monaghan is a well-known architecture buff and collector of Frank Lloyd Wright furniture and buildings. The architect in this case is Gunnar Birkerts, who will reportedly install a chapel on the top floor of the building. For the sake of comparison, it might be noted that the Leaning Tower of Pisa , which wasn’t supposed to lean, sits on a 5.2-degree angle.

BIRTHDAYS AND BIRTH NOTES: It’s Happy Birthday this month to West Beach Cafe in Venice, 10 years old; to Giuseppe! Ristorante in Beverly Hills, also 10; and to La Famiglia in Beverly Hills, 15. . . . The Cat & the Custard Cup celebrates its own 10th anniversary March 6 and 7 by serving lunch and dinner both days from its very first menu, at the original prices . (Dinner prices, for instance, run $8.50 to $11.95 for main dishes, with appetizers at $2.50.) No reservations will be accepted these two days. . . . Caliente, featuring “Texas-style smoked meats from its custom-built smokehouse, as well as traditional Mexican favorites,” has just opened in Irvine by the El Torito chain. . . . And Garduno’s is new in Costa Mesa, serving Italian food from a single menu day and night. . . .

CULINARY CALENDAR: Jonathan Waxman’s elegantly Californian Jams in New York City turned into the more casual “Jonathan Waxman’s” last year and then closed altogether this January--but it will be reborn briefly this Tuesday through Thursday, when Waxman himself cooks dishes from the Jams menu at the Parkway Grill in Pasadena. . . . Chanteclair in Irvine has inaugurated a series of weekly wine tastings, every Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. A different winery is featured each week, with samples poured for $2 per generous helping. Complimentary hot and cold appetizers are included. . . . After four years of dinner-only service, the Palace Cafe in Santa Barbara now serves lunch on Thursdays and Fridays. . . . UCLA Extension’s Division of Culinary Arts holds a free open house next Saturday, March 11, from 10 p.m. Various professional and extracurricular culinary programs will be discussed. Reservations are required, and may be made by calling (213) 206-8120. . . . The original El Cholo on Western Avenue takes part in a progressive dinner, dubbed “Over 200 Years of Dining in L.A.,” on March 20. For $50 per person, all-inclusive, participants begin with margaritas and nachos at the 1927-vintage El Cholo, move on to a full-scale Italian dinner at Little Joe’s downtown (1910) and finish with cheesecake and pie at Philippe, also downtown (1908). Travel is by chartered bus. Call any of the three restaurants for more information. . . . And the husband-and-wife team of Jean-Pierre Moulle and Denise Lurton-Moulle is offering five one-week visits to Bordeaux this summer, each with a maximum of eight guests, for $2,450 per person--air fare not included. Moulle was chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley for seven years, and his wife’s family owns a number of well-known Bordeaux chateaux (La Louviere and Clos Fourtet among them). Their weeklong program includes visits to markets, restaurants and numerous chateaux (including Margaux and Mouton), plus home-cooked meals and a fisherman’s picnic. Write to the Moulles at P.O. Box 8191, Berkeley, 94707 for details.