Le Cellier to Serve Its Last Meals July 31

The dependable, traditionally French Le Cellier in Santa Monica has been sold, and will serve its last dinners on July 31. The restaurant opened almost 20 years ago--on the site that had been occupied by Madame Wu’s, incidentally, until that establishment moved to palatial newer quarters a few blocks to the west. Le Cellier owners Madeleine and Jacques Don Salat plan to retire--”with mixed emotions, very frankly,” says Madeleine Don Salat. The restaurant’s longtime chef, Jean Bellordre, she adds, “is being a bit mysterious about his plans, but he certainly wants to have at least some months of complete rest.”

The new owner of the premises is Carmine Inc., a company owned in part by Carmine Competelli, Jr.--whose family ran the veteran West L.A. Italian restaurant called Carmine’s for several decades, before selling it last year. (It remains open under the Carmine’s name, but is no longer affiliated with the original proprietors in any way.) Competelli plans to remodel Le Cellier slightly and reopen it by mid-September as Menello di Carmine. The food, he says, will be Continental/Italian--but he adds that “my thing has always been that I’ll make anything anybody likes. If somebody wants a French bouillabaisse, I can make that. Italian’s my specialty, but I’m also a great steak cook, and I can make a terrific hamburger.”

Competelli’s partners in the new enterprise are businessmen Matthew Smith and Gerald Goldman and former Carmine’s maitre d’ Eddie De Bellagente. Madeleine and Jacques Don Salat retain a small interest in the place, and additional minority shares are held by 30 or so additional investors--including Hollywood celebrities Tony Danza and Kim Basinger.

PYRAMID SCHEME: Under its original proprietor, Fernand Point, La Pyramide in Vienne, south of Lyon, became arguably the best and most influential single restaurant in France. Among the chefs who learned their trade there were Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel and Louis Outhier. Thus, it was almost literally the birthplace of the nouvelle cuisine, and by extension of all the cooking styles that stemmed from it--the “New American Cuisine” among them. Following Point’s death in 1956, his widow, Mado, continued to run the place in something of an ossified fashion, as a slowly fading monument to his greatness. She died two years ago, and her family closed the restaurant. Now it has reopened under the ownership of a Paris-based development company called Le Foncier des Champs Elysees, with its dining room remodeled and expanded and a few guest rooms added. The new proprietors are 31-year-old chef Patrick Henriroux and his wife, Pascale. The food world waits and watches.

THE VERY THINGS THAT HAPPEN: The Seventh Street Bistro, downtown, holds its first wine maker’s dinner tomorrow night at 7 p.m., featuring the wares of Rutherford Hill Winery. The six-course meal costs $75 per person, with tax, tip and even valet parking fee included. . . . The Mandarin in Beverly Hills, in association with the L.A. chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food, offers a special luncheon next Sunday called “The Daily Foods of China.” The restaurant will be divided into a series of food stalls, each serving samples of authentic regional Chinese street food. Call (213) 473-5324 for details. Lew Mitchell’s Orient Express on the Miracle Mile matches the wines of Adler-Fels with a special Chinese-French-style menu, July 31. Cost of the seven-course meal is $50 per person. . . . And photographer/painter Paul Child, whose wife is Julia, will be honored at a special exhibition of his work Aug. 6 from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Santa Barbara Winery in Santa Barbara. The winery’s own wines will be served with food selected by Mrs. Child--and tours of three nearby food businesses will be available. The event is sponsored by the Southern California Culinary Guild. Tickets are $25 apiece, and reservations must be made by July 30. Call Laila Rashid at (805) 963-3633.

And Yamashiro in Hollywood hosts “The Keith and Margo Murder Mystery,” a combination prix fixe dinner and audience-participation drama, Aug . 4, 12 and 18, with later dates to be announced. Cost is $65 per person, and reservations are essential.