Two Restaurants but Only One Name

“You have probably heard about the . . . unauthorized Pomodoro Restaurant which just opened on La Cienega,” reads a press release from the similarly named Ciro’s Pomodoro, not far from La Cienega on Beverly Boulevard. “Don’t confuse us with them!” the release continues.

What’s going on here?

What’s going on is that the chic, Milan-based Bice restaurant group--its two-year-old New York establishment has been a great success and it plans to open a full-fledged Bice in Los Angeles this fall--has meanwhile launched an informal trattoria-style place in L.A., on the site of the old Bistango, called Bice Pomodoro. Unfortunately, a restaurant called Ciro’s Pomodoro had already opened in the same part of town, in 1987.

“We’ve got restaurants of the same name in Milan, London and Boca Raton,” says Ciro’s Pomodoro spokesman Edward Lozzi. “We’re doing well here. We’ve got all kinds of things going on. And now people are getting confused. When Alan Carr decided to throw a party at that new Pomodoro a few months ago (eventually cancelled), we got over a hundred RSVPs here. Channel 9 News wanted to know where to park their truck. It’s all very frustrating.”

Lozzi adds that the restaurant’s proprietor, Ciro Orsini, “has called his attorneys to research the possibility of a lawsuit.” He adds that, “We’re trying to avoid suing the other place. But if they’re using our name after we’ve had it for two years, we feel we deserve some financial compensation at the least.”

And how do things look from La Cienega? “We absolutely did not know that there was another restaurant here named Pomodoro,” said Paul Guzzardo, Bice Pomodoro manager. “ ‘Pomodoro’ is a generic term. It’s just Italian for ‘tomato’. We have our own reputation, which speaks for itself, in New York and Milan. Not one customer has ever mentioned to me that they’ve come to the wrong place. The only confusion some people have is that they might think that this is Bistango reopened. Otherwise, people know that we are Bice.”

Guzzardo doubts that anyone would have RSVP’d to Ciro’s for the Alan Carr party. “Anybody who had an invitation would have had our phone number. Anyone who called information and asked for Pomodoro would have been given our number . . . .”

I did call information and asked for Pomodoro, incidentally, and I did get the Bice restaurant’s number. Was there another Pomodoro listed in Beverly Hills or West Hollywood, I asked the information operator. No, she replied. I also called Ciro’s Pomodoro in Boca Raton. A young lady answered the phone, “Thank you for calling Ciro’s. May I help you?”--without a tomato in sight.

NEWS AND NOTES: Magdalena’s Cafe in Bellflower hosts a wine dinner featuring the vintages of La Jota on Tuesday, June 20. . . . Gilliland’s in Santa Monica celebrates the opening of their remodeled bar area with a nightly “GilliHour,” featuring a selection of appetizers for $3-a-serving at the bar. . . . Barnabey’s Hotel in Manhattan Beach offers a “Europe for Two” package on weekend evenings through June 30. The $79-per-couple price tag includes dinner, dancing, an overnight stay and buffet breakfast in the morning. . . . Gardens restaurant at the Four Seasons Hotel on Doheny Drive features soft-shell crab in several guises, both on a special luncheon menu and as dinner-time specials, through the end of June.