Coming Soon to Stay: Music to Eat by

Background music of the cocktail piano sort has long been a fixture in old-fashioned “fine dining” places, and jazz clubs and cabarets have always served food. But lately more and more establishments that are serious restaurants first and foremost seem to be using entertainment of one kind or another to attract customers. The new St. Mark’s in Venice, built the combination into its very format, dedicating itself to the proposition that good food and good jazz can enhance each other. Live music is a major part of the action at Mario Tamayo’s recently opened Atlas Bar & Grill. And at Maple Drive, a jazz duo has become integral to the frenetic nightly scene. Even the rather staid Westwood Marquis dining room has added name jazz performers to the menu.

Now English entrepreneur Peter Stringfellow has plans to open a local establishment that not only, he says, modestly, will be “among the best restaurants in L.A.,” but will include a full-scale dance club on the premises. Stringfellow, who already runs what he calls “restaurant-clubs” of this description--under the Stringfellow’s name--in London, New York and Miami, plans to start construction here in early April in the new Two Rodeo Building on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The enterprise will occupy a two-level, 12,700-square-foot (!) space, with a dining room on the ground floor and a completely separate dancing facility upstairs. Stringfellow stresses that “not one bit of dance music will be heard in the restaurant.”

Stringfellow’s, which is slated for a November opening, will serve lunch and dinner six nights a week. A kitchen staff has not yet been hired, although Stringfellow hopes to bring at least one chef from his London operation. “I have no intention of having a place that’s going to close the weekend after it opens,” he says. “This one is going to last.”

We’ll see.

HAPPY HAGGIS: Six months ago in this column, I reported that the Scotch Whisky Information Center, in conjunction with the New England Culinary Institute, was sponsoring a national competition for professional chefs to find an American version of Scotland’s national dish. That’s the Caledonian concoction of oatmeal and lamb innards boiled in a sheep’s stomach called haggis. The recently announced winner of the competition was Elizabeth Terry, executive chef and co-owner of Elizabeth on 37th in Savannah, Ga. Her recipe, dubbed “Stuffed Southern Poke,” included chicken, ham and apples.

In honor of Burns Night--the haggis-eating, bagpipe-blowing, whisky-drinking observance of the great Scots poet Robert Burns’ birthday, celebrated on Jan. 25--I thought I might belatedly pay tribute to those few Southern California chefs who entered the contest, even if they didn’t win. They are the following: Jack Escobedo, head chef at Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica, who submitted four recipes--a more-or-less traditional lamb-based haggis, another based on ground beef, a “haggis au papier “ made with pork and using wax paper as a casing, and “kid haggis,” using the innards of mountain goat kid; Stuart G. Cumming, chef de cuisine at Brannigan’s in Vista, who submitted a Thanksgiving haggis, made from turkey; William Thomson, chef at the Clarion Hotel and Restaurant in San Diego, whose “Great Thomson haggis” added tongue to the traditional lamb offal; and Scott Kirkwood, head chef at the Manhattan Beach Country Club in Manhattan Beach, whose recipe included--three cheers for good old South Bay creativity!--caribou meat, pecans and black currants. We might well say to one and all, as Burns himself once wrote, “Fair for your honest, sousie-face/Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race.”

WHAT’S COOKIN’: Jane’s Cucina Italia in Burbank hosts a five-course “designer food and wine tasting evening” tomorrow, featuring vintages from four California wineries. The price is $45 per person. . . . Among the many local Chinese restaurants celebrating Chinese New Year (It’s the Year of the Horse) this year are Tse Yang in Beverly Hills, which offers a special $45-a-head holiday banquet from the 26th through the 28th of this month; and Joss, whose $38-per-person repast, served on the 26th and 27th, includes eight courses and Champagne. . . . Meanwhile, also on the 27th, India’s Cuisine of Tarzana caters a celebration of the 40th anniversary of India’s Republic Day, at the Hyatt Hotel LAX. Cocktails, live entertainment and dancing and guest speakers (including former California Gov. Jerry Brown) are included in the $40 ticket price. Call (818) 244-1128 or (714) 771-0777 for information. . . . Jean-Claude Guillon from the Hotel Grand du Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera prepares special Provencal-style dishes at the Hotel Bel-Air Restaurant from Jan. 29th through Feb. 11th. . . . And La Toque, on the Sunset Strip, will be serving a special truffle dinner all week. Truffle week starts tomorrow and runs through Saturday. The meal costs $55 per person and includes, says chef Ken Frank, “truffles from the appetizer right through truffle ice cream for dessert if people want it.”