All the Bice News That’s Fit to Print: Clark Comes West

When Roberto Ruggiero, president of Da Bice U.S.A., announced recently that he had hired noted New York-based chef Patrick Clark (most recently of the just-closed Metro) and former Tavern on the Green general manager Bruce Axler to launch a series of casual new eateries dubbed Cafe Med, he simultaneously informed us that he had a “surprise” planned for the Beverly Hills Bice this fall. Paul Guzzardo, director of operations for the company, has now revealed just what that surprise is--and part of it is that Clark won’t have anything to do with the Cafe Med chain after all.

More to the point, Clark will be coming to Bice in Beverly Hills as chef, starting in early October. The restaurant’s original chef, Pino Pasqualato (formerly of our own Valentino and La Bruschetta), will continue in the kitchen, working side by side with Clark. “Patrick’s forte is really fish and meat,” says Guzzardo, “so he’ll concentrate on those areas, while Pino concentrates on pastas and other specifically Italian items. We also hope they’ll engage in a little bit of competition that will spark new ideas for the menu.”

That menu, Guzzardo continues, will evolve under Clark’s direction. “We’ll keep the same basic dishes, but add a little American-Continental accent to our cuisine,” he says. “Roberto (Ruggiero) has taken the advice of many who have said, ‘ Basta with the pasta!’ I don’t mean that we’ll be deviating from our main line, but it will be fuller than it’s been.”

He adds that Clark is expected to stay at the Beverly Hills Bice for at least a year. Later, he might transfer to another location, in keeping with a longstanding Bice practice of exchanging chefs between restaurants. As for the Cafe Meds, says Guzzardo, “Patrick will consult on them, but basically our feeling is that he’s so good, we want to use him at Bice, rather than asking him to downplay his creativity for a more informal place.”

In other Bice news, Guzzardo has announced that the old Bice Pomodoro site on La Cienega, shuttered for some months, has just reopened under new management--but with Da Bice U.S.A. continuing as owners of the property. The new management group is headed by Alain Hasson, who was maitre d’ at Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills, and the restaurant has been rechristened Le Bilboquet--no relation to the trendy little bistro of the same name in New York. “The cuisine is mainly Mediterranean, from Nice,” says Guzzardo. “We’re just letting Alain go with his concept and ideas.”

THE BIG STINK: The annual L.A. Garlic Festival, usually held each July on a closed-off portion of San Vicente Boulevard in West Hollywood, did not perfume the air this year. The event, which was organized by Bruce and Katherine Veneiro of Nucleus Nuance and benefited the local American Red Cross (garlic/vampires/blood--get it?), was reportedly squelched this year by West Hollywood officials on the grounds that it was frivolous, and might help give the community a reputation as a “party town.”

Garlic-lovers should not despair, though, because at least one longtime regular participant in the event, Ken Frank of La Toque on the Sunset Strip, plans a mini-garlic festival of his own at his restaurant, from the 10th to the 15th of this month. “Somehow,” Frank says, “when people go out for a garlic menu, they’re always in a good frame of mind.” The observance--which Frank has dubbed “La Cure d’Ail” (The Garlic Cure)--will include a different four-course menu every night, priced at $36 a head (of people, not of garlic).

“There’ll be regular garlic and elephant garlic, raw garlic and cooked garlic,” says Frank. “We’ll make pastas and salads and soups--a good Provencal fish soup with truly garlicky rouille , for instance--and offer diners a choice of meat or fish as a main course every night.” Desserts, Frank adds, will not be garlic flavored. “We’ve been there, we’ve seen, we’ve learned, and we will not be returning,” he says of such confections.

For the time being, incidentally, Frank has dropped his plans, announced two years ago, to convert La Toque into a larger, more informal California-style restaurant. “I think at this point,” he says, “I’m just going to be satisfied--to keep doing a good job, keep doing what we’ve been doing for the last 11 years.”

NEW FERRY SCHEDULE: Gerard and Virginie Ferry, owners of L’Orangerie on La Cienega and Pastel in the Rodeo Collection in Beverly Hills, plan to close the latter restaurant at the end of this month. “It’s the end of our lease,” says Gerard, “and I think I’d rather concentrate on L’Orangerie instead. We’ve always done very well at lunch here, but the whole Rodeo Collection is dead at night--we’re the only ones here--and we do very badly at dinner time. A restaurant can’t survive on lunch alone, especially today.” At the same time, the Ferrys have hired a new chef at L’Orangerie--31-year-old Jean-Claude Parachini, a veteran of the kitchens at two prominent Paris restaurants, Vivarois and L’Ambroisie, and himself recently the head chef at La Grenouille in New York. The former chef at L’Orangerie, Jean-Francois Meiteignier, is investigating the possibility of opening a restaurant of his own, says Gerard.

OUT AND ABOUT: Lawry’s California Center in Los Angeles celebrates Mexican Independence Day--the real Mexican Independence Day, not Cinco de Mayo--with a four-day program of special events and buffet meals, from the 13th through the 16th (the last date is Independence Day). The vast majority of the planned activities are free. Information: (213) 224-6842. . . . Annie and David Gingrass, former chefs at Spago and now chefs at Wolfgang Puck’s Postrio in San Francisco, come to Los Angeles this Friday to teach a cooking class at the Epicurean Cooking School in West Hollywood, beginning at 10:30 a.m. The cost is $60 per person. The school also starts its new Professional Chef Training Series, taught by graduates of the Culinary Institute of America, this month. Tuition is $1,150, all-inclusive. Information: (213) 659-5990. . . . More than 20 Brentwood area restaurants--including Berty’s, the Brentwood Bar & Grill, Camelion’s, the Daily Grill, Spangles, Sushi Boy, and Toscana--will offer tasting samples at Great Tastes of Brentwood next Sunday, Sept. 16, on San Vicente Boulevard between Bringham and Darlington avenues in Brentwood. (In offering to close a portion of its stretch of San Vicente Boulevard for this event, Brentwood apparently doesn’t mind if it gets a reputation as a party town.) Tickets are $25 in advance--call (213) 820-6888 to order them--or $30 at the event itself. Proceeds benefit the California Special Olympics, the Brentwood Library, and SOS Coral Trees. . . . And Monday evenings in September are “Wash Night” at Patout’s in West Los Angeles, featuring all-you-can-eat servings of red beans and rice with smoked sausage--said to be traditional Cajun wash-day fare--for $12 per person.