Just What Is a Restaurant Consultant?

From time to time in this column I report that so-and-so has been hired by such-and-such-a-restaurant as a consultant. Recently, several readers asked me what it is exactly that a “restaurant consultant” does.

I, in turn, asked one of L.A.’s top restaurant consultants, Debbie Slutsky, for an answer.

“People usually have an idea or a concept,” she said, “and maybe they know what kind of food they want--but they don’t know how to get it.”

That’s where consultants come in. Sometimes they’re brought in to solve problems at existing establishments; typically, though, they’re hired to open or completely reconceptualize a restaurant.

“The first thing I usually do (for a new restaurant) is write a menu,” Slutsky said. “Then I work with designers to build a kitchen that can efficiently turn out whatever kind of food we’re going to have. After that, I develop the recipes, hire and train the chefs and assistants, have input on the choice of tableware (since plates affect how the food looks when it comes out), bring in the right purveyors, set up systems of inventory and scheduling, and train the service staff. Obviously, if I’m working with an experienced chef, my contribution is a little different.”

Is it possible, I asked, that would-be restaurateurs who can’t do a lot of this stuff for themselves shouldn’t be opening restaurants in the first place? Slutsky laughed and said, “If I say ‘yes’ to that, pretty soon I’ll be out of a job.” She did add, though: “I think a lot of people open restaurants for the wrong reasons. If you do it just because you’ve got a lot of money to invest, or you think it’s going to be glamorous or fun, or you want to impress your friends, well, you might get lucky and make it anyway, but you probably won’t. People should open restaurants because they love food, have a certain sense of style and taste, and have recognized a niche in the marketplace that they can fill.”

Finally, how does Slutsky know that restaurants will continue to follow her instructions faithfully after she leaves (usually she stays only six to eight weeks after opening)--and how does she feel when they don’t? “There are no guarantees,” she said. “I sort of look at all my restaurants as my children. It’s hard when you’ve gone through the birthing process and turned them over to their natural parents, only to watch them go bad. It’s usually a financial problem. Money gets tight, so the owners start cutting back on labor, or stop buying specialty items, or try to make substitutions. That’s one of the hardest things to make people understand: That a menu is developed with, say, a certain olive oil or vinegar in mind--and when you change those things, you change the nature of the food.”

Slutsky’s current projects include setting up private dining room facilities at the commonly owned Chalone, Edna Valley, Carmenet, and Acacia wineries; working with John Sedlar of St. Estephe on his forthcoming Bikini in Santa Monica; and helping Lalo and Brothers convert part of its existing floor space into a lower-priced cafe with a bistro menu. And she expects to sign a deal shortly to create a 15,000-square-foot, 600-seat restaurant in the San Fernando Valley--details to come.

OOPS DU JOUR: This column erred recently in identifying Juventino and Tino Gomez--now in charge of the kitchen at the Atlas Bar & Grill--as having been chefs at the Columbia Bar & Grill. The latter restaurant’s general managing partner, Jayson Kane, writes to tell me that Tino was sous -chef at the place, for less than a year, and that Juventino has never worked for the establishment . . . And it is apparently not true, after all, that Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts is a vegetarian. The information that he was came, as noted earlier, from a couple of New York-based caterers who had worked for the Stones, as quoted in Spy Magazine. Now Spy has published a letter from another one-time Stones caterer, Owen Lee of Philadelphia, who says that Watts is in fact “quite the carnivore”--and the magazine confirms that Watts had indeed been seen eating animal flesh.

RESTAURANT MISCELLANY: The Four Oaks Restaurant has introduced a new lunch menu, featuring a selection of unusual “knife and fork” sandwiches--among them free range chicken with crisp rosemary and pine nuts on country bread, home-smoked Norwegian salmon with candied lemon cream on toasted brioche, and sliced lamb on thyme bread with tarragon mustard and marinated tomatoes. . . . Giancarlo Zaretti, who recently sold his Pontevecchio in West L.A., is about to open his second Caffe Napoli Ristorante-Pizzeria, in Northridge. (The original is in Van Nuys.) . . . And I was sorry to learn that Homer F. Luke, chef and co-owner (with his wife, Edythe) of Homer & Edy’s Bistro on Robertson Boulevard, died on April 17. The Louisiana-born Luke, a veteran of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s famed “Silver Service” dining cars, was one of the first chefs to serve Cajun and Creole food in Los Angeles in modern times. Homer & Edy’s, which opened in 1975, will remain in business under Mrs. Luke’s direction.