Dash of Soul In the Works on Melrose

Karen Gordy, daughter-in-law of Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr., has just bought Pomegranate, the Frenchified, postmodern-ish restaurant and bakery on Melrose Avenue. Although Gordy has no plans to change Simon Miller’s design of the 7,000-square-foot interior, with its stainless steel bars and floor-to-ceiling windows and hardwood floors, just about everything else will be transformed.

The restaurant will be renamed SOUL on melrose, and a new chef, Joseph Randall, will be cooking down-home food--everything from black-eyed peas and corn pudding to smothered pork chops and Southern fried chicken. He’ll also be making light, contemporary versions of Southern cuisine, such as apricot-glazed stuffed chicken breast and steamed red snapper wrapped in mustard greens.

“The whole idea,” says a spokeswoman for Gordy, “is if you want soul food and you know what it is, you are going to get it. But if you would like a more contemporary version that’s lighter, uncluttered, there will be that too.”

The restaurant, scheduled to open the first week of March, will feature light jazz on weekends until 3 a.m. and brunch on Sundays. Pomegranate Bakery, which is also being taken over by Gordy, will continue under the Pomegranate name.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME . . .: Remember Mille Rose, the cozy Provencal restaurant on Melrose Avenue that was closed by the health department last month due to major sewage problems?

Well, it seems that two of the three partners have reopened the restaurant with new decor, a new menu (coffee, sandwiches, pastries), and a new name--Cafe du Theatre.

Steven London, of the County Department of Health Services, confirms that the restaurant passed all its health inspections and was given the OK to reopen on Jan. 23.

BEGINNER’S LUCK: The first night of three-star French chef Roger Verge’s nine-day guest appearance at Citrus was, well, memorable. “We got the main course before the appetizers,” says one diner. “They got it all screwed up.” “Having a guest chef is is like opening a new restaurant,” says Citrus’ Kora Gail, who admits that things went badly opening night. “The waiters had to deal with a completely new menu. And the whole menu was in the computer, and the computers went down, we don’t know why. The place was sold out and the kitchen was a big mess.” But at least one customer left happy. Roseanne (Barr) Arnold, who showed up on the Arsenio Hall show dressed for the Verge dinner (“The chef came all the way from France !” she gushed), got there early enough to avoid the kitchen chaos. Gail says that things improved, and the rest of the dinners were “going great.”

BRIEFLY: Amy Pressman (Old Towne Bakery) and Bill Chait (Louise’s) have teamed up and signed a lease for a store in Brentwood. Chait will open a 90-seat Louise’s restaurant, and he and Pressman will co-own an adjoining 1,000-square-foot Old Towne Bakery. . . . David D’Amore, last seen cooking at the now-closed La Serre, is now chef at Carroll O’Connor’s Place in Beverly Hills. . . . You don’t have to go to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras. Harold & Belle’s, the popular 23-year-old Creole-style restaurant on West Jefferson Boulevard, will pack its gumbo to go. A large bowl, with heaps of shrimp, crab, chicken, andouille sausage and ham, at $12.95, also comes with rice and bread.