A Feast for Fiends, With Iron Maiden and Guillotine

“I want to make it so that you feel as if you’ve fallen asleep and are dreaming you are in the 18th Century,” says John Thomas, owner of Asylum, who has been working on his Halloween extravaganza for two months. “All of my favorite fantasies from classic horror movies are going to be re-enacted,” he promises.

When the restaurant closes at 2 a.m. Thursday morning, a work crew will descend upon it, transforming the place into an 18th-Century French chateau. “The front room will be chandeliers, candelabras and chiffon; in the back room we will have an iron maiden, witch-burning cages, a guillotine and an electric chair,” says Thomas. “They will all operate, of course.” He quickly adds that he’s hired a pyrotechnics expert, “so that when someone gets shot, he really gets shot.”

The crew for his Halloween party also includes art directors, prop masters, costume designers, script writers and performance artists. The party starts at 8 with an elaborate preview of chef Michel Wahalterre’s fall menu. “We are trying to do our version of Babette’s Feast,” says Thomas. At 10:30, the tables will be taken away so the fun can begin. Tickets for the dinner and party are $140 per person; admission to the party only is $70.

“In this economy, what person in his right mind would attempt something like this?” asks Thomas, who estimates he will spend $40,000 to $50,000 on the blowout. “It should be done at a place called Asylum.”

EASTSIDE/WESTSIDE? “I think the times of importing food from all over the world, from France, Australia, New Zealand, are gone,” says Laurent Quenioux, chef-owner of Seventh Street Bistro, downtown. That’s why the restaurant he plans to open early next spring will be an American-style bistro. “You have some new young guys who go in the countryside and start doing their own salads, their own duck liver, their own farm-raised venison, their own mushrooms, everything,” says Quenioux. “We want to re-create the recipes of traditional American food and do them in the format of a bistro--casual, plain American food with a French technique. We won’t even have any French wine on the list.”

The restaurateur says he is actively searching the Westside for a new spot. “Downtown is still downtown. With dinner it’s hard, we don’t have the exposure that we should really get,” says Quenioux, who is considering keeping his current restaurant open only for lunch and private parties. “Besides, there are so many restaurants for sale on the Westside, it’s easy.”

NO STONEY UNTURNED: “In England, people don’t eat out nearly so often as the Americans do,” says Londoner Jane Elliott Smith. “In fact, some American’s don’t even have kitchens.” That’s why Smith and partner Stoney Chen, former owners of a restaurant in London’s Chelsea district, are about to open a moderately priced restaurant featuring French, Italian and Asian food on Brentwood’s San Vicente Boulevard.

Smith and Chen moved to Los Angeles a year ago; they’ve been running a catering business called Tigre d’Asie and racking up more than 27,000 miles looking for a location. Stoney’s, their new restaurant, will feature an eclectic menu. Among their dishes are something called “pinky in a blanket” (a large shrimp marinated in ginger and shallots, wrapped in phyllo and served with a tangy lemon dip) and “c.d. (Chinese duck) pizza.” “It’s a good one,” says Smith. “We have been using the people we cater for as guinea pigs. They loved the c.d. pizza--and not one of them has died.”

BICE, BICE, BICE: Roberto Ruggieri, owner of Bice, plans to open an offshoot called Cafe Bice in Sunset Plaza in January. “If you want to compare it to something in Los Angeles, it will be like Mezzaluna,” says Pepe Amespil, Bice’s general manager, “casual, very inexpensive Italian food attracting a young, European crowd . . . from models to businessmen.”

But that’s just for starters. Two more Bices are planned: one in Scottsdale, Arizona, in November and another in downtown San Diego around the middle of February. “We have some new chefs coming in,” says Amespil. “One is coming in from London and will work closely with Patrick Clark (Bice’s Beverly Hills chef) and we’ve got an Italian chef for the Sunset trattoria.”

OPEN AND SHUT: Open--The Midnight Star, the four-story gambling and dining complex owned by Kevin Costner and his brother Dan. It’s in the tiny South Dakota town of Deadwood (population: minus 2,000). Costner conceived the idea while he was filming “Dances With Wolves” in Deadwood’s Spearfish Canyon. “We have 60 or 70 casinos,” says Jane Brown of Deadwood’s Chamber of Commerce. “The whole state had to vote for gambling, but Deadwood is the only city that has it.” As for the food served at Jake’s, the Midnight Star’s best restaurant, Brown gives it high marks. “I have eaten in San Francisco, Detroit and New York City,” she says, “and Kevin Costner’s place is at the top of my list.”

Closed--Steven Seagal’s Restaurant, after a one-month run in Chicago. “Yes, it’s closed,” says Michelle Bega, Seagal’s publicist, who would not comment on the reason for the closing or whether there were plans for a reopening. But food is obviously a part of Seagal’s agenda. The actor, who does not live in Chicago, is about to begin shooting “Dreadnought.” It’s an action movie; Seagal plays a cook aboard a Navy ship.

BARGAINS: Children wearing Halloween costumes and accompanied by a parent eat for $1 (from a special children’s menu) at Mumms restaurant in North Hollywood. . . . Aashiana, a West Los Angeles Indian restaurant, offers an all-you-can-eat Champagne buffet dinner every Monday for only $9.95. . . . Yujean Kang’s in Pasadena now offers a dim sum menu from 11:30 a. m. to 2:30 p.m. daily with prices ranging from $1 to $5, per item. . . . Buy of the week--Champagne Restaurant’s prix-fixe lunch. For $15 you get an appetizer, main course and coffee at this Century City country French restaurant.