Adieu France, Buon Giorno Northern Italy

Cafe Jacoulet, which has served excellent California-French contemporary food in a casual but stylish Pasadena setting for the past 6 1/2 years, will close for good on or about the 30th of this month. “What has happened,” says Robert Simon, one of the owners of the place (with his father and stepmother, Alvin and Baba Simon), “is that we’ve received a very lucrative offer from a group which wants to bring a very modern Northern Italian restaurant into the site.”

The new restaurant, which will be called Tra Fiori (“Among the Flowers”--Pasadena being the home of the Rose Parade, get it?), will be owned by a limited partnership. Investors include a number of Hollywood celebrities and luminaries from the world of horse racing. The general partner is noted veterinary surgeon Greg Ferraro--who, says Simon, “is an accomplished home chef, whose ideas I believe will translate beautifully into a public dining room.” Simon himself is staying on as managing general partner.

The restaurant, continues Simon optimistically, “will remind one of the best aspects of Valentino, Locanda Veneta and Toscana, but most of all of Northern Italy itself.” (It might be noted that the name chosen for the establishment also reminds one of the popular Tra Vigne--”Among the Vines”--in the Napa Valley.) Although no chef has yet been named, Simon adds that he has asked the present dining room and kitchen staff to stay on.

Tra Fiori, scheduled to open in early June, will be furnished in black, white and “sort of a burgundy/mahogany color,” with contemporary art on the walls, Italian light fixtures and fabrics, and an elaborate sound-baffling system. A dress shop next door to the existing restaurant will be converted into a 1,700-square-foot entryway and bar, where appetizers and a late-night menu will be served.

WHAT? NO GOAT’S HEAD SOUP? Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has opened a restaurant in London’s Kensington area--called Sticky Fingers Cafe. Appropriately enough, the menu features such finger-sticky foodstuffs as Buffalo chicken wings, barbecued spare ribs and hot dogs served with “heaps of fried onions.” The place itself suggests a smaller, clubbier version of the Hard Rock Cafe--complete with (what else?) rock memorabilia, including Stones gold and platinum records, all over the walls. Among the other items offered are a cocktail called Rocks Off (Cointreau, Bailey’s Irish Cream and Amaretto), a deep-dish apple pie called Brown Sugar, and, inevitably, a Beggars Banquet--”a spectacular feast of whole roast chicken, ribs, bar-b-que chicken wings, chili, guacamole, corn chips, salad and piles of crispy fries served with pico de gallo and bar-b-que sauce.” Ironically, New York-based caterers Sylvia Gattnig and Karan Malta, who provided meals for the Stones on their U.S. tour last year, told Spy magazine recently that the group’s drummer, Charlie Watts, is a vegetarian, and that none of the Stones eat very much meat.

SALT AND PEPPER: The noted Napa Valley restaurant Miramonte has closed, after 11 years as one of the best and most famous eating places in the area. Chef Udo Nechutnys is considering other possibilities, but has no firm plans for the future. . . . The Ginger Man in Beverly Hills--named for a famous J. P. Donleavy novel and owned by actor Carroll O’Connor--has closed for remodeling. It’s scheduled to reopen this week, with a new name--Carroll O’Connor’s Place. . . . Trumps in West Hollywood, long known for serving afternoon tea, has introduced a special “chocolate tea” to be held on the first Tuesday of every month, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. In addition to the tea, sherry or white wine, and tea sandwiches served at the restaurant’s regular teas, guests will be offered chocolate chip scones and a variety of other chocolate-flavored confections. The cost is $15 per person. . . . Champagne in West Los Angeles hosts a Passover dinner, this Tuesday, featuring a six-course banquet served family style, accompanied by kosher wines from both California and Israel. A rabbi and a canter will preside. The fee is $95 per person, with proceeds going to the United Jewish Fund. . . . And Nation’s Restaurant News reports that the new, much ballyhooed McDonald’s on Red Square in Moscow grossed an unbelievable $200,000 a day in its first four weeks of operation--based on an estimated $7 average per-person check, and on the fact that most of the 17,000 or so daily customers buy food for two or more people. If the pace continues, notes NRN, the Kremlin-side McDonald’s will gross more than $70 million in a year’s time, which would be by far the highest volume ever recorded by any restaurant in the world.