Magdalena’s Will Open a Branch in Long Beach

Chef Stephen White confounded skeptics when he opened Magdalena’s, a sophisticated and ultimately successful French restaurant, a few years back in Bellflower--hardly known as a hotbed of Gallic gastronomy. Now, he plans a second place in Long Beach, on the site of the now-defunct Justina’s.

“It won’t be another Magdalena’s,” he says. “Instead I want to upgrade Magdalena’s and make the new place a country French bistro sort of thing. It’s in a very nice historical building with 25-foot ceilings. We’ll have a wine bar, and the dining room will seat about 75 with a patio for another 20 or 30. Plus, I hope to install a wood-burning pizza oven, though we won’t focus on pizza. We’ll probably also use the oven for roasts, and maybe homemade breads.” Though White will help set up the new restaurant himself, it will be run by his brother and longtime sous-chef, Carlos White, and by Magdalena’s maitre d’ and wine buyer Tad Tellers.

The name of the establishment, which White hopes to open in August or September, is Nathan’s. It seems that White’s sons--Nathan, who’s almost 6, and four-year-old Tobin--were starting to ask dad where their restaurant was. Magdalena’s, you see, is named for White’s 9-year-old daughter.

DANGEROUS SALAD: Arugula had a close call up Washington State way recently. The trendy bitter green--also known as garden rocket or Eruca vesicaria (and, incidentally, said in flower language to signify deceit)--was briefly classified as a Class A noxious weed by--who else?--the state’s Noxious Weed Control Board. That means it would have been illegal to cultivate, and all existing plants would have been “slated for eradication.”

The problem, according to Catherine Hovanik, the board’s executive secretary, is that arugula, which board members originally believed to be a relatively new introduction to the state, was perceived as a possible threat to Washington alfalfa and grain growers. “It has apparently been a serious problem in this regard in the Middle East,” says Hovanik, “and as I understand it, the arugula seed is small and difficult to separate from alfalfa seed and some other grains.”

After listing arugula as “Class A,” she continues, “we received a great deal of comment, both written and oral, from people who grew it as a garden herb. We reconsidered the listing, and reclassified it as Class B. That means that it is no longer forbidden or slated for eradication, but that if a county or a weed district chooses to put it on their own local noxious weed list, they can do so. At this point in time, no one has. This fall, the weed committee will probably consider whether it ought to be listed as a noxious weed at all.”

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson, I believe, who observed that a weed is just a plant that no one has found a use for yet . . . .

ROCKY MOUNTAIN BITE: K. G. Hawthorne of West Los Angeles writes to comment on my recent report that Michael McCarty’s Rattlesnake Club in Denver has been renamed Adirondacks. “As one who has only just moved here from Denver,” says Hawthorne, “I think it’s lousy that (the name will change). Colorado is a state trying to retain its roots (and) sense of place even as it grows and sheds its ‘cow town’ image. It’s proud to have a fine, world-class restaurant like the Rattlesnake . . . (and) alongside wonderful food and terrific design. . . . Coloradans have loved that name--and the fact that it reflects and honors some of the state’s heritage. Coloradans . . . are plumb tired of hearing that things from elsewhere, from Back East, are better. . . . To change the name to Adirondacks is a slap in the face to all who love and support the Rattlesnake.”

NEWS, NOTES: Nostalgia is the theme at L.A. Nicola next Sunday when “the wine and food of the ‘80s” is remembered with Flora Springs wines and a $55-per-person L.A. Nicola menu to match. To help guests ease their way down memory lane, the restaurant is asking participants to dress in clothes of the 1940s. Why choose the ‘40s for remembering ‘80s food and wine? “We thought ‘40s dress would be fun,” read the press release. Oh. . . . On Thursday, Duplex, a restaurant that celebrates the ‘40s every night with the jazz age music it plays on its sound system, hosts a four-course dinner featuring the wines of the Rodney Strong Vineyards, including the winery’s late harvest Johannisberg Reisling. Cost is $50 per person. . . . Giorgio Masini, former general manager of the Regency Club in Westwood and the Manhattan Country Club in Manhattan Beach, is now general manager at Victor Hugo’s in Beverly Hills. . . . Mason’s in Brentwood has opened for lunch, weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. . . . And, even as the hype over the University of Utah’s cold-fusion-in-a-flask experiment has gone cold, Gladstone’s in Malibu has developed a Cold Fusion cocktail: Stolichnaya vodka, Triple Sec, Rose’s Lime Juice and other ingredients, including “heavy water” (i.e., ice)--garnished with, it says in a press release, a nuclear umbrella.