Ferment at Wine-Conscious Restaurant

Robert Rogness, longtime wine director and maitre d’hotel at Joss, the contemporary-style (and extremely wine-conscious) Chinese eatery on the Sunset Strip, calls it “Chinese restaurant meltdown”: Victor Fung, who was imported from Hong Kong amid great fanfare last year to serve as head chef at the establishment, has returned home. And, adds Rogness, Serry Osmena, “who had come in as a significant partner, to the great benefit of the restaurant,” has severed her relationship with the restaurant as well, after a falling-out with restaurant owner Cecile Tang--who, Rogness says, “got upset when Serry was listed in a review of Joss as one of the owners, even though that was true.” Now Rogness himself resigned from the establishment, he says, after the proprietors failed to meet his demands regarding compensation and staff hiring practices.

Is this, then, the end of Joss as we know it? By no means, Tang responds. To begin with, she says, chef Fung is on temporary leave, and is expected to return to the restaurant--and in the meantime, his second-in-charge, Kan Liam, who has been with Joss since it opened, continues to run the kitchen in the same style. Tang further promises that the ambitious and innovative wine program which Rogness developed for the restaurant will continue--but now under the direction of Napa Valley-based master sommelier Ronn Wiegand, who will visit the restaurant on a regular basis and make frequent use of the fax machine in updating the wine list and planning special events. (Wiegand helped draw up the original wine list at Joss, before Rogness was hired.)

Regarding Serry Osmena, Tang says that, “She and I had talked about the possibility of her becoming a partner, but it really didn’t work out. There has been no change in her relationship with us, then. If she were to become a partner, that would be a change, because she has never been one.”

Tang adds, though, that she is indeed on the lookout for a new maitre d’hotel.

Rogness, meanwhile, is teaching wine classes at UCLA, and has formed a partnership with Osmena, with the idea of starting a new Iberian restaurant in the Hollywood or West Hollywood area in a about a year’s time. Rogness has also formed what he calls an “umbrella group” for wine consulting and instruction, called The Society for the Prevention of Jaded Palates. Under said umbrella, he will host a series of wine events at various local restaurants.

TOOLS OF THE MODERN RESTAURATEUR: These days, it’s not enough to have good food and efficent service. The up-to-date restaurateur must take care of the customer’s whole being. At least that’s what Noa Noa’s Kenji Seki thinks. Discreetly printed at the bottom of the Noa Noa menu is the following: “Cordless payphone available. Cigarette smoking in the bar area only. Noa Noa concerns itself with ecological and environmental issues.”

RESTAURANT STEW: What’s Up is new in the Brentwood Gardens complex in Brentwood, directly above the California Pizza Kitchen. Unfortunately, the menu, which features what the restaurant describes as “updated American basics and European provincial dishes,” is a little too cute. Sample: You Can’t Tuna Fish, Garden of Eatin’, Totally Tubular, and A Clockwork Chicken. . . . And Toshi Takahashi, former owner/chef of the now-defunct Les Joues Hioux in Torrance, serves as guest chef at Chez Melange in Redondo Beach Tuesday through Thursday. . . The South Bay Free Clinic’s third annual South Bay Gourmet Sampler is Sunday, April 29, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Manhattan Beach. Twenty-eight area restaurants--from Bobby D’s and the Bottle Inn to Tout de Suite and the Twelfth Street Grill--will participate.