Wiping the Slate Clean on Cafe Blanc

Remember Cafe Blanc? The Franco-Japanese restaurant that the 1992 Zagat Restaurant Survey dubbed Los Angeles’ eighth most popular restaurant? The one that mysteriously closed its doors last month? According to the Food Program Official Inspection Report issued by the County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services, the tiny restaurant, which opened in 1988, was operating without a public health permit. On Nov. 1, the restaurant was ordered to “discontinue operation . . . at once.”

“Being as short-staffed as we are, there is no way we can really keep track of every single place,” says Al Lopez of the Department of Health Services. “It just so happened we had an alleged food poisoning at the place. Our inspectors went to investigate and said, ‘We show this place as not existing.’ Six months, it could have been a year, they were operating illegally, we don’t know how long.” According to Lopez, the department’s files are purged every two years.

Tomnisa Harase, listed on the inspection report as owner-operator of Cafe Blanc, could not be reached for comment.

PRUNING: “I just want people to know that I am no longer going to be involved with the restaurant as of Jan. 18,” says Maple Drive chef de cuisine Michael Rosen. The restaurant has told him that he will be laid off in a cost-cutting move.

He is not alone; Rosen says that during the last six months Maple Drive has laid off “at least three line cooks,” and the wait staff has been considerably trimmed. “It’s kind of a frightening situation,” says Rosen, “and even Maple Drive is not insulated from that.”

“Over the last two years I allowed Michael to take responsibility because he is very good,” says managing partner/executive chef Leonard Schwartz. “But he was getting a substantial salary, and with the downturn of the economy and things being a bit slow, I really couldn’t afford the luxury of having him--since I am a chef myself. Michael belongs in a restaurant where the owner is not a chef.”

Schwartz says Maple Drive employs about 90 people, 35 of them in the kitchen. “I might have laid off a few of the kitchen staff,” says Schwartz, “but we are not working with a skeleton crew. There are about 10 people per shift in the kitchen, so I won’t have to toss the noodles for every pasta dish that leaves the kitchen.”

Schwartz says he has not laid off any waiters, although he has not replaced waiters who have left through attrition.

“We are trying to be very businesslike and realistic about the year to come,” Schwartz says. “I want to be in my lean, trim fighting shape because I don’t know what ’92 is going to be like, and Maple Drive is such a big restaurant.”

LOAFING: The latest restaurateurs to turn into retailers are Takis Markoutsis and Armen Shirvanian, co-owners of Mi Piace in Pasadena. In January they plan to open Pasadena Baking Co. next to their restaurant, selling French and Italian baked goods and espresso drinks.

STOCKPOT: Jerry’s Famous Deli, which opened recently in Marina del Rey, now has a full-service entertainment and corporate catering division at that location. . . . Indigo Restaurant in Los Angeles now offers delivery service for $2.50 within a two-mile radius of the restaurant. . . . Giovanni’s Ristorante, an Italian restaurant, has opened in downtown Covina. Besides pasta and pizza, the restaurant makes its own sausages and specializes in cioppino , veal stew and osso buco. . . . West Hollywood’s Red Car Grill has a new late-night supper menu, Thursday through Saturday, 9:30 to midnight. . . . Danny Avalos, formerly sous-chef at Le Bel Age Hotel, is cooking at Carroll O’Connor’s Place in Beverly Hills. . . . Through February, Encino’s Silver Grille is celebrating its fourth anniversary, Sundays through Wednesdays, by offering customers a free bottle of Chardonnay or Cabernet with any two dinner entrees.