Terminated II: Judgment Day for Chef

Lisa Stalvey had just completed the menu and was working on food cost breakdowns when Schatzie partner Robert Earl walked in and fired her.

“Left field, I had no warning,” says the former chef at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s still-unopened Schatzie in Santa Monica. (It’s scheduled to open for lunch Monday.) “He just said Maria (Shriver, Schwarzenegger’s wife) and Arnold were not quite sure about a few things.” Stalvey, who had left her job at Wolfgang Puck’s Granita in Malibu for Schatzie, was immediately replaced by former Maple Drive chef Michael Rosen.

Stalvey is still trying to figure out what went wrong. “There was never an indication there was a problem,” she says. “At the beginning, it was just Arnold and Maria and they were at the food tastings and everything. He was very involved, so was she. Four days into my job, they both told me that I wasn’t doing exactly the food they wanted, so I changed it and they both came to me and said the food was incredible and they were very happy.”

August Spier, recently hired as manager of Schatzie, had previously managed DC3 at the Santa Monica Airport, where Rosen had once cooked. “August didn’t like everything on the menu, but I thought it was just a personal thing,” recalls Stalvey. “He didn’t like fatty hamburgers, for instance. But that’s what Maria wants . . . a fatty burger. These were adjustments. I felt comfortable about it and I was able to put some really interesting things on that menu.”

So what are Stalvey’s plans? “The market for finding a job right now is atrocious,” says Stalvey. “Arnold gave me a three-month extension on my medical insurance, and severance pay. But here I am, what’s going to happen to my career?”

GRAIN BELT: Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, chefs-owners of City restaurant, are hoping to provide a model for healthy eating. To that end they’ve added a whole new group of dishes to their menu. While not vegetarian, the dishes emphasize grains and vegetables, with only small portions of meat, fish or poultry. “All of our new ‘Healthful Selections’ are representative of environmentally responsible eating, and follow dietary guidelines for increasing vegetables and grains and reducing saturated fat and cholesterol,” the La Brea avenue chefs say. And for those with an environmentally responsible sweet tooth, Feniger and Milliken have also added several sugarless desserts to the menu.

FRANCO-ITALIAN: The Frenchest of the French, and the most Italian of the Italians, are about to start sharing kitchen quarters. How will it work? Time will tell: Fennel, located on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, is moving into the space occupied by Pazzeria, the bar space at the La Cienega restaurant Pazzia. The chefs will work in Pazzia’s kitchen, and Pazzia’s bar menu will continue to be available . . . at Fennel. What the restaurants have in common (other than the kitchen) are owners Mauro Vincente and Gary Freedman. “We have the building permits, and we will start remodeling on Monday,” says Freedman. Pazzia’s bar will be removed to make way for Fennel’s antique zinc number, and more tables will be added. The project is scheduled to be completed by March 1. Meanwhile, Fennel will stay open in Santa Monica through February.

CHANGE OF HEART: “We were going to change La Chaumiere,” says a spokeswoman for the Century Plaza Hotel, “but when our customers heard about our plans, they raised such a fuss that we decided to keep it like it is.” The fancy French restaurant did get a new chef--Katoh Takadashi. A native of Japan, Takadashi has added many Asian influences to executive chef Andreas Knapp’s classical French menu.

The Century Plaza also scrapped its plan to turn the Garden Pavilion restaurant into an Italian bistro called Palio. “There are enough Italian places out there,” says the spokeswoman, “and we saw the need for a seafood restaurant.” So the Garden Pavilion has become Water’s Edge, a casual, moderately priced seafood and pasta bar and grill.

ON THE FIRE: Beginning next month, a new Johnny Rocket’s will open some place in the world every 18 days--for an entire year. . . . Checkers in downtown Los Angeles is now offering a three-course pre-theater menu with complimentary limousine service to the Music Center for $28.50 per person. Dinner service begins at 5:30 p.m. and theatergoers have their choice of eating all three courses in the restaurant, or having the dessert course after the theater, in the hotel lounge.