Something New From Room Service

The way Don Clawson, food and beverage director for Radisson Hotels International, tells it, he just plain got tired of seeing all those Domino’s Pizza boxes in the halls of his company’s hotels. An increasing number of hotel guests, it seems, were eschewing Radisson’s own room service food and ordering, instead, a large with extra cheese, no anchovies to go.

The solution? Clawson invented his own “pizza to go” outfit, which he dubbed Napolizza, “The Pizza with Pizzazz.” Using premade Boboli brand crusts, Napolizza pizzas are made in Radisson kitchens, but it seems that the hotel would rather give the impression Napolizza is some non-related joint down the street. Packaged in pizza-chain-like boxes, hotel employees in special uniforms with Napolizza logos hurry down the corridors with insulated carrying cases. At many of the participating Radissons (roughly half of the company’s 110 domestic hotels are taking part in the pizza experiment), guests even order the pizzas by dialing a special phone number, independent of the regular room service one.

Two Radisson hotels in the L.A. area, the Radisson Plaza in Manhattan Beach and the Radisson City of Commerce, offer the pizzas, though neither one uses the Napolizza phone line or uniforms. David Blain, food and beverage director at the latter hotel reports that the pizzas are doing quite well. “A lot of people watching TV, watching a football game or whatever, call down and order pizza,” he says. “I think it’s a good idea. It’s just another way to promote room service.”

Franz Vogel, food and beverage director at the Radisson Plaza, is a bit less enthusiastic. “It’s too early to tell how the pizzas are going to do,” he says. “We don’t sell very many. Anyway, the timing is a little difficult for room service. It takes about 30 minutes to prepare a pizza properly, and lot of people don’t like to wait that long. And if you set it up so that you can deliver a pizza in ten or 15 minutes, the quality isn’t very good.”

A PIZZA OF THE PIE: And speaking of pizza, according to figures recently published by Nation’s Restaurant News, the No. 3 restaurant chain in America by systemwide sales--surpassing Wendy’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and bested only by McDonald’s and Burger King--is now Pizza Hut. (Domino’s is No. 7, which isn’t bad, either.) Even more significant, perhaps, is the fact that McDonald’s itself is now test-marketing pizzas, in about 15 of its units in Evanston, Ill., and vicinity. Four varieties are offered, at prices ranging from $5.84 to $9.49. Apparently not wishing to put all its dough in one oven, though, McDonald’s is simultaneously testing a breakfast burrito and a “Ranchero” burger (on a cornmeal bun) down Houston way.

THE GILMORE PALETTE: When last we heard of Elka Gilmore, who had been the original chef at Camelions in Santa Monica and then chef/co-owner of the short-lived Tumbleweed in Beverly Hills, she had been hired as executive chef for the then-unopened Checkers Hotel in downtown L.A., and then promptly came to a parting of the ways with the establishment. After Checkers, she dropped out of sight for a time--”to get some rest and lick my wounds,” she says. Now she is back at the stove as owner/chef of the restaurant portion of Palette in West Hollywood. (Partner Caroline Clone owns the bar section of the place.) Palette is a combination dance club and cabaret, with serious eating facilities attached. Gilmore has developed two menus, a casual one to be served upstairs in the bar area from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., and a more formal one in the main dining room, served from 6 to 9:30 p.m. “We take our last reservations downstairs at 9:30,” Gilmore says, “because it gets pretty happening here after about 11:30 every night, and we want people to be able to enjoy their dinner first.” Among the dishes Gilmore offers are oyster shooters and Navajo-style lamb tacos (both Tumbleweed dishes) upstairs, and Caesar salad on a cracker-style pizza crust, roast quail on risotto pancakes, and roast duck with figs and port downstairs.

QUICK, CALL WILLARD SCOTT: I think restaurants ought to count their years in business the way veterinarians count the ages of dogs and cats (which generally live much longer than restaurants do, anyway)--at a ratio of about seven to one. With that in mind, it is doubly (or septimally) impressive, I think, to note that Art’s Chili Dogs in South-Central Los Angeles will be 50 years old (in human terms) on Sept. 15--and that Philippe’s, downtown, celebrated its 81st birthday on Friday.

WHO WAS THAT LONE DINER? Dennee Frey of Los Angeles writes to remind me--I’ve written about the matter in this column previously--that it is often difficult for a solo diner to get treated properly in a restaurant. Frey travels a lot, she writes, and thus often eats alone. And when she does so, she adds, “I often judge a restaurant by how they treat me . . . If the service is cordial and attentive, I’m much more inclined to return with a larger party.” Locally, Frey gives high marks in this regard to Emilio’s in Hollywood, where she went recently for the Sunday night buffet. “This restaurant,” she writes, “actually made an effort to make a lone diner feel at home, particularly seating me in a spot to receive special attention.”

More restaurants should go out of their way to make unaccompanied individuals feel comfortable, I think. Who knows? That lone diner might be another Dennee Frey, willing to bring in more business if she’s well-treated.

RESTAURANT TIDBITS: Tom Sunnanon of Rama Thai Cuisine in Van Nuys has opened Fifty Fifty Sunset in Hollywood, serving approximately the same menu as his first restaurant. . . . Hugh Carpenter’s Chopstix Dimsum Cafe and Takeout has opened its third unit, in Redondo Beach. (The first two were in Hollywood and Sherman Oaks.) According to Chopstix vice president Bill Milham, the chain hopes to open as many as 200 more outlets nationwide in the next 10 years. . . . And Joe Cantisani has closed his Di Canti Ristorante in La Jolla and moved to the Bottle Inn in Hermosa Beach--bringing the cream of his wine cellar along.