Lips Smack Over Prospect of Trendy Restaurant on Pier

The notion is strictly back-burner material, but City Hall mouths are already watering: Wolfgang Puck has expressed a very tentative interest in opening yet another trendy restaurant, this time on the the soon-to-be-rebuilt Redondo Beach Pier.

“The deal is not done--everything has to be right, you know,” the nationally known chef cautioned Thursday by telephone from Spago, his West Hollywood eatery. “Who knows what could happen. Maybe there will be another storm and then, no more pier.

“(But) I think it would be nice to have a nice fish restaurant on the pier,” Puck said laughing. “That way, if a customer doesn’t like the food, we throw him overboard right away.”

Nearly destroyed in 1988 by a series of storms and a massive fire, the Redondo Beach pier had languished until last year, a victim of the city’s ambivalence about whether and how to rebuild.

After a court order, however, and an advisory vote showing that a majority of the citizens wanted a new pier, the city hired an architect and an engineer and began drafting blueprints with a target opening date of 1994.

Four designs and three architectural options are under review at City Hall, all featuring a carousel and an oceanfront restaurant. It is that location--at the most seaward edge of what will be either a V- or a W-shaped pier--that has whetted Puck’s appetite.

Harbor Director Sheila Schoettger said she learned of Puck’s interest last month, when she received a letter from the chef. In the letter, Puck said that Steve Shoemaker, a local merchant and a regular at Puck’s Santa Monica restaurant, Chinois-on-Main, had told him the city was rebuilding its landmark pier.

“I have been talking with Mr. Shoemaker for some time about possibly establishing a restaurant on the new pier in your beautiful city,” the letter said. Puck added that the oceanfront site “would make a spectacular theme restaurant which I would have a great interest in developing,” and that the two-to-three-year time frame would “fit nicely” with the projected growth of his holdings.

The letter ended with an invitation from Puck to the harbor director and the pier architect to discuss matters further over dinner at one of his restaurants.

However, in a separate interview, Spago general manager Tom Kaplan warned that Puck’s interest was “if anything, just discussion.”

“Redondo Beach is a wonderful city and I’m sure they’ll find an operator (for the restaurant),” he said. “But he has so many projects on the board now, it would be unfair of anyone to interpret (the letter) as a verbal intention of doing a project.”

In addition to Spago and Chinois-on-Main, Puck’s holdings include Postrio in San Francisco and the recently opened Eureka in West Los Angeles, as well the Eureka Brewery and the Wolfgang Puck Food Co. Among his new projects, Kaplan added, is yet another new restaurant, Granita, which he plans to open in Malibu next month.

Those caveats, however, are carrying about as much weight as a sprig of parsely at Redondo Beach City Hall, where local officials and civic boosters are openly confessing their excitement at the thought of a neighborhood Spago-by-the-sea.

“Ohhhhh,” sighed Mayor Brad Parton, “That would be sooooo nice.”

Harbor Director Schoettger was more restrained.

“To get these expressions of interest from someone like (Puck), I think, is very important,” she said. “It certainly would be wonderful if we could attract a restaurant of that quality.”

So far, she added, no meeting has been set up. But further discussion is likely.

“I’ve just been busy with other things. But don’t worry,” she laughed, “I never pass up a free dinner.”