Ex-Rex Chef Packs for Santa Barbara

Fans of the food at Rex Il Ristorante and Pazzia might well find themselves looking (and traveling) north later this year.

A new Italian restaurant is in the works in Santa Barbara, and its credentials are superb. Its chef/owner, in fact, will be Vito Gnazzo--who was first brought to Los Angeles in late 1980 by restaurateur Mauro Vincenti as the sous-chef at Rex Il Ristorante, and then served as head chef at the restaurant from 1983 through early 1989. Gnazzo, who is originally from the town of Felitto, south of Salerno in the Italian region of Campania, returned to Italy after leaving Rex--to get the feel of his country again, he said. Now he’s back in Los Angeles, working temporarily at Vincenti’s Pazzia (with head chef Umberto Bombana) and meanwhile working on the place he hopes to open soon in Montecito--to be called simply Gnazzo.

The new restaurant will be small, seating a maximum of 50 people, and will be reasonably priced--but the food, promises Gnazzo, will be very much his . Vincenti, who says that he is “helping Vito out but won’t be very involved in the place,” predicts that Gnazzo will open in late spring--”with Santa Barbara’s blessing, that is.”

ITALY, TOO: In other Italian restaurant news, the proprietors of the old-style Mario’s in Westwood Village, Anna Maria Angelini and her daughters Marina and Viviana, have announced that they plan to open a second restaurant late this spring--on the Third Street Mall in Santa Monica. The same style of food and comfy red-booth atmosphere will be featured. The original Mario’s, incidentally, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year--which gives pause to an old geezer like me, who remembers when the site still housed Crumpler’s malt shop.

GOTHAM NOTES: One of New York’s best contemporary American restaurants, Rakel, has closed. In its place, the establishment’s proprietors have quickly launched an informal brasserie-style place called Cafe Rakel. The new chef is Steve Cault, a veteran of Hubert’s and Arcadia, also in New York. Meanwhile, the late Rakel’s talented chef, Thomas Keller, plans to travel for some months, he says, and will consider other possibilities upon his return to New York later in the year. . . . Elsewhere in New York, former Michelin two-star chef Gerard Pangaud, who recently left Joe Baum’s clubby Aurora to start a place of his own, has announced that he will do so in partnership with noted restaurateur David Keh, on the site of the latter’s defunct David K’s Cafe. (Pangaud’s former sous-chef, Andrew Wilkinson, succeeds him at Aurora.). . . . And the New York edition of Paul Prudhomme’s K-Paul’s now accepts reservations--thus breaking with the first-come-first-served (and line-up-on-the-sidewalk) tradition by which the New Orleans original is run.

TABLE SCRAPS: Sue Tsao, owner of Abacus Chinese Restaurant in Brentwood, retired from active management of the place in 1988--but has now returned to take over full-time. The restaurant now features what Tsao calls “contemporary California Chinese” cooking--which means, among other things, catfish “popcorn” with Kung Pao sauce, sliced tea-smoked duck with radicchio and blueberry salad, and abalone and chicken risotto. . . . And Les Pyrenees in Santa Monica, hailed for the variety of its duck dishes in these pages recently, apparently wants to prove that its ducky reputation isn’t just a canard: It has renamed itself Elegance du Mallard, and expanded its duck menu still further--now offering some 21 different preparations, including roast duck with assorted condiments and sauces, magret (thin-sliced duck-breast steak), duck soup, confit, pate, and more.

FAT TUESDAY: La Bon Vie in Arcadia hosts its first annual Cajun Mardi Gras party on Feb. 27th, with a four-course menu, entertainment, and a costume party, at $50 per person . . . And West L.A.’s Orleans observes Mardi Gras with its fifth annual eight-day Cajun-style gala, from the 20th through the 27th. Among the events, a gumbo cookoff, an “All You Can Eat Crawfish Boil”, and plenty of live music, costumes, and of course Cajun food. Call the restaurant for details.