St. Louis’ David Slay Enters the Los Angeles Competition

Among the many restaurants that have opened in Los Angeles in recent years are offshoots of establishments in New Orleans (Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Patout’s), San Francisco (Prego, the Mandarin), New York (Remi), Florence-by-way-of-New-York (Bice), London (Langan’s Brasserie), London-by-way-of-New-York (Mr. Chow), Paris (Fennel, Tse Yang) and Tokyo (Ginza Sushi-ko, Robata, etc.). But now we’re about to get what is almost certainly the Southland’s first restaurant that came a long way from St. Louis.

It’s called David Slay’s La Veranda, and it’s scheduled to open Dec. 10 on the site of the old Rouard’s La Polonaise on South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. The man in charge, hardly surprisingly, is David Slay, and his story is this:

His family has been in the restaurant business in St. Louis since 1911. His father ran a popular steak-and-potatoes place called Slay’s until he was tragically killed 10 years ago by an employee during a robbery of the place. David, then in his early 20s, appreciated Slay’s but, he says, “I wanted to expand into, well, fancy food.” He did this by opening a little 28-seat place of his own called Cafe Hamton and then sneaking off to apprentice with famed chef Gerard Vie at Les Trois Marches in Versailles. In 1983, having been successful with his first enterprise, Slay opened a larger place, which he called La Veranda. It was very well-received, and quickly gained a reputation as one of the best restaurants in town. “Slay’s wizardry with California cuisine,” wrote one critic, “emphasizing fresh produce and imaginative combinations, satisfies the city’s most sophisticated palates.”

Slay himself says, “I do think we had a pretty good restaurant. But it’s always been something of a dream of mine to have a restaurant in L.A. I’m a young guy of 30, and I follow all the guidebooks and food writing, and it just seems to me that this is the best restaurant town in the world right now--and I’d like to compete in it.”

POWER GRAPES: Shelley Hack rhapsodizing about calf’s brains. Whoopi Goldberg with a trunk full of crab. Dudley Moore having dinner with a woman taller than he is. These are just a few of the astonishing sights that will greet you on a new video called “The Celebrity Guide to Wine”--conceived by and starring Spago maitre d’hotel and chef-sommelier Bernard Erpicum, with such luminaries of varying voltage as Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock, Robert Loggia and Herbie Hancock, as well as the aforementioned three. “Celebrity Guide” is an informative, frequently funny, professionally put-together affair (it was written and directed by Daniel Helfgott, with a theme by Maurice Jarre), which packs a surprising number of details, including specific wine recommendations, into its 60 minutes.

There are, perhaps inevitably in so brief and elementary an approach to the subject, some oversimplifications and minor inaccuracies, to be sure. (We are told, for instance, that California wines are named for the grapes they contain--with no mention of proprietary labelings, or of California “Chablis” and “Burgundy.” We are also informed that Chardonnay is “one of the two grapes that goes into the making of champagne,” when in fact there are three grapes involved: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and the Pinot Meunier, which may be obscure in California but is in fact the most widely planted champagne grape of all.) And you can sure tell which of these celebrities are comfortable natural actors and which ones take themselves (clumsily) seriously even in informal circumstances.

But, quibbles aside, “The Celebrity Guide to Wine” does a splendid job of covering a lot of difficult territory--including, incidentally, wine etiquette in restaurants, and the subject of intimidating wine lists. And it’s hard to quarrel with Erpicum’s epigraph: “Do not be afraid of wine. Just enjoy it.” The video costs $19.95, and is available at Wally’s in West Los Angeles, Neiman-Marcus in Beverly Hills, and Book Soup across the street from Spago, among other places.

WHAT’S ON: A selection of caviars from the Flying Salmon Co. and assorted Bricout champagnes will be featured at a holiday dinner offered by John Dominis in Newport Beach Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. The price is $65 per person, including tip. . . . Thursday, also at 7 p.m., the Siamese Princess in West Hollywood features the wines of Chalk Hill with such unusual wine fare as chicken wrapped in pandanus (or screw pine) leaves and duck rolls with peanut sauce. . . . Saturday, Duplex hosts a Bourbon tasting and dinner at 7 p.m. for $35 per person, with a special prix-fixe menu for designated drivers. . . . And Santa Barbara wine authority Cork Millner conducts a 2 1/2-day wine seminar at the Los Olivos Grand Hotel, in the heart of Santa Barbara County wine country, Dec. 12-14. The program, which includes meals in the hotel’s Remington’s restaurant, costs $355 per room (single occupancy), $485 (double). Call (800) 446-2455 for details.

FOOD ART: In case you’re in Gotham and hungry for culture later this month, you might wish to visit “ART what thou EAT: Images of Food in American Art,” an exhibition organized by the Edith C. Blum Art Institute at Bard College and mounted at the New York Historical Society, Dec. 17 through March 22.

Some 80 American paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th Centuries are included. John Sloan, Ben Shahn, Andy Warhol and Andres Serrano are among the artists represented, and the artists’ themes are said to include “the expanded variety of foods due to technology, the changes in individual foods such as meat and fruit, the correlation between food and economics, food and sexuality, and food and death.”