Chaya Anniversary Made to Order

When a restaurant in Los Angeles reaches the ripe old age of 5, it’s cause for celebration.

That was the motivation for the Franco-Italo-Japanese block party Sunday night in the alley behind Chaya Brasserie, the West Hollywood restaurant with a global menu. With a patron list that includes everyone from Mick Jagger to Steven Spielberg, lately Chaya’s bar has become as much of an institution as its veal chow mein: Some nights, just to buy a drink means half an hour wait outside on Alden Drive.

The ancestors of owners Riku Suzuki and his brother, Yuji Tsunoda, have been in the restaurant business for 300 years in Japan, but since five years is practically a golden anniversary for Los Angeles, they invited 1,500 customers--the regulars and the irregulars--to dinner for a mere $10. Two thousand showed up.

“This is a city where you just come, but you disappear,” Suzuki noted of the restaurant business. He commutes here from Tokyo every few weeks while his older brother minds the store.

Asked for the recipe for their success, Suzuki said that neither he nor his brother is too adept at recognizing stars, so the restaurant has developed a reputation for non-preferential treatment. “One night I just popped in from Tokyo and Harrison Ford, Madonna, Mick Jagger and Prince were all at different tables. Yuji doesn’t know anyone, so he just smiles at everyone.”

Trendy Guests

Spielberg and friends didn’t show up Sunday, but trendy young professional types did, including Colin Cowie, who just recovered from catering Hugh Hefner’s wedding, and Jeff Daniels, whose architectural firm designed Chaya as well as the soon-to-be Chaya Venice. (It will have a Spanish influence, he allowed.)

Drinking Kirin beer on tap, kamikazes (vodka, triple sec and lime juice) and sea breezes (vodka, cranberry and grapefruit juice), patrons were packed in elbow to elbow. Beneath paper lanterns strung in the valet parking area behind Chaya and the Agnes B. clothing store (in which the brothers own an interest), people waited in line for such fare as green tea noodles sprinkled with seaweed or roast beef with French fries.

Standing in a static line for sushi, David Poland, an advertising consultant, said: “This is a boon for all the other hip restaurants in town tonight. Nobody can get anything to eat. There’s too many people and too little sushi.”

But his friend Jonathan Gordon, who described himself as an unemployed shiitake mushroom farmer, said, “I’m a professional eater and I will make sure I get enough.”

Even if feeding oneself was a challenge, the people-watching proved satisfying. The predominant attire: Both sexes in baggy black Japanese designer wear and small, dark sunglasses that made everyone look intellectual.

“I realized I was here for an hour without saying one word--I just looked,” said Sharona Alperin, a real estate agent. Of course, she had also lost all four girlfriends she was supposed to meet there. “We all took separate cars. But forget it,” she shrugged.

While a palmist worked one corner of the party, live acts ranged from traditional Japanese drummers to the rock group Brave New World. There was also a game of kingyo sukui--the goldfish scoop.

At 10 o’clock, a crew came in to disassemble the party tent. “Otherwise,” Chaya’s Judy Henning said, “people would stay all night.”