Flexible Menus for Diners’ Special Needs

Flexibility will be the hallmark of two new restaurants scheduled to open later this year. The Edgemar Grill in Santa Monica will, as a matter of basic philosophy, go out of its way to satisfy customers’ special wants and needs. “We’re going to really try to accommodate people’s special diets and whims,” says Peter DeLucca--former chef at the Darwin (now defunct) in Santa Monica and a 72 Market Street alumn--who will head the Edgemar Grill kitchen. “We’ll offer a good choice of low-calorie, low-fat dishes on the menu--but beyond that, if somebody wants this or doesn’t want that, we’ll do our best to give them what they want.”

True to its name, DeLucca says, the restaurant will feature “contemporary and traditional grill food, with regional American dishes as specials.” Prices will be moderate, with average main courses pegged at around $13-$14. “We don’t want to exclude a lot of the local community by charging too much money,” DeLucca says. “We want to try to make the place part of the neighborhood.”

Kaneko Ford Umemoto Design is designing the 2,900-square-foot, 77-seat restaurant, with interior decoration by Susan Grayson of Grayson Interiors. Pritzker Prize-winning Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry designed the retail and museum complex that will house the restaurant. Partners in the enterprise include DeLucca; Larry Klosowski, a businessman who helped open Tommy Tang’s on Melrose; and Frank McKevitt, CEO of Transworld Entertainment.

Look for the opening in late September or early October.

Sensible prices and flexible menus are also the motivation behind Brown’s Bar & Grill, scheduled to open midsummer on the site of the old Le Cou-Cou on La Cienega. “De-escalating the cost of fine dining” is how the chef, Mark Gonzales (formerly of Morton’s and the short-lived Ashley’s), describes the restaurant’s goal. That means, among other things, main courses priced between about $7 and $15, and a menu that encourages diners to make a meal of salads and appetizers.

The owners of Brown’s are Bill Huggins (who trained as a chef in Colorado and France) and Craig Brown of Dalton, Brown & Lona, a real-estate brokerage in Beverly Hills. “We’re trying to put together a very nice club-like, intimate atmosphere,” says Huggins, “not too pricey and not too trendy.” There will be a full bar and a patio. The food, Huggins adds, will be “simple, and low in fat but good and hearty, with maybe a touch of Italian, a touch of Southwest. We want it to be the kind of place people will come back to more than once a week.”

FROM HAGGIS TO RICHES: The Scotch Whiskey Information Center has announced what is surely one of the most original professional cooking competitions to have come along in ages: “The Search for the Great American Haggis.” Haggis, of course, is a kind of Scottish pate made from lamb innards, mutton fat and oatmeal cooked in a casing of sheep stomach--not exactly a dish that sounds compatible with contemporary American cooking. As sponsors of the competition define “American Haggis,” though, the only requirements are that it be cooked in a casing and made with oats (ironically, a very popular ingredient in the United States for its supposed health benefits). Other than that, it’s open season. The competition is limited to “chefs/cooks with two years experience, currently working in U.S. establishments licensed to sell spirits.” First prize is a gold medal and an all-expense-paid, 10-day, gastronomically themed trip for two to England and Scotland. For details, call--no kidding--the Haggis Hotline, (800) 232-3271.

NEW RESTAURANTS, NEW MENUS, NEW HOURS: Set in the historic Victorian-era Kyte House in Santa Monica, the Heritage now occupies what was formerly the home of the Westside version of The Chronicle. The owners are Albert and Ann Ehringer, who also run the Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabasas, among other restaurants. General manager of the place is the Saddle Peak’s former chef, Rolf Nonnast; Keith Roberts is chef. . . . The reggae nightclub Kingston 12 in Santa Monica has added a Jamaican restaurant called Montego Bay to its premises. . . . Woody’s Goodies has debuted in the Long Beach community of Belmont Shores. Chefs pass food to waitresses at the surfer-themed restaurant through the window of a Volkswagen van. . . . Yamashiro in Hollywood has introduced an expanded traditional Japanese menu, including bento box dinners, and a new bar menu, including specialty drinks, appetizers and desserts. (A Continental menu is still offered.) . . . The Rangoon Racquet Club in Beverly Hills now serves a three-course luncheon for $12.50, Monday through Friday.