At Xiomara, a Conflict in Styles

“Xiomara felt that my ego was getting too big,” says chef Robert Gadsby, who has left Xiomara, the chic, 4-month-old Pasadena restaurant. Gadsby cooked his last meal there March 17. “Too many people came in to get autographs and to meet me. A lot of business people had approached me with deals. She (owner Xiomara Ardolina) felt I was getting too much exposure.” Gadsby, who describes his cooking as “fooditecture,” says his former boss suggested he consider changing his style. “The real problem we faced,” he says, “is that I take a lot of pride in my work, and I wouldn’t let anything go out unless it looked a certain way. After all, I am a disciple of Thomas Keller (chef at Checkers in downtown Los Angeles) and I did not want to let him down. I don’t want Thomas to say, ‘You are one of the most talented chefs I know. I brought you from New York and this is how you repay me? By not being able to put good food together?’ ”

Ardolina tells a different story. “We had a lot of unhappy customers,” she says. “Because he piles his food, one thing on top of another, by the time it went out to the customer it was cold. And customers were waiting up to two hours for dinner. I told Robert I would not promote him or my restaurant in the press until he got his act together.”

Ardolina adds, “I mortgaged my house to open this place and I am not going to let my restaurant go down the drain.”

The bottom line, says Gadsby, is “I had no support.” As for the future, Gadsby adds: “A few places have approached me. Some of them are just ridiculous. Their main concern is wanting to capitalize on my popularity right now. But I am very cautious and am asking for a written contract.” Gadsby says he’s talked to Bruce Marder of Rebecca’s, although “it is not exactly my place.”

Meanwhile, back at Xiomara, Christopher Cavallero of the Georgian Room at the Pasadena Ritz-Carlton, starts Monday as the new sous-chef. “This time,” Ardolina says, “I will watch this guy for a year to see what kind of food he puts out before I make him my chef.”

MORE CREATIVE DIFFERENCES: Asylum is about to get a new chef and a new menu . . . again.

First there was Guy LeRoy. Then there was Michel Wahaltere. The most recent chef at the Asylum was Vaughn Allen. Now he too has walked away.

“This is the first time I have ever done something like this.” Allen says, “but I was pretty perturbed. They asked me to change my style of cooking, to go in another direction. They hired me for my style of food, which is very clean, very healthy and fun cuisine,” says the former Muse chef, “and now they wanted chops.”

John Kapatsis, formerly of Morton’s, Scandia and the Red Car Grill, came in three weeks ago as general manager, and immediately started to trim Asylum’s staff. “The restaurant had been grossly mismanaged in the past,” Kapatsis says. “We were overstaffed. I never fired a single person; everybody was laid off.

Of Allen, Kapatsis says, “Vaughn walked out of Muse on quite a few occasions and decided to go surfing. Now he took the grand exit with no explanation.”

Not so, says Muse owner, Ron Braun. “Vaughn has always been a total professional,” he says. “He never walked out of my restaurant, never. Even when he was supposed to take vacations he would make sure everything was cool before he left. I was really sad when Vaughn left for Asylum.”

Allen is temporarily cooking with his friend, John Pierre Peiny, at L.A. Farm. His former sous-chef, Kim Muller, will take over at Asylum until a new chef can be found.

OPENING: Chef Claude Segal, who has been consulting at MaBe in Los Angeles, will open his own place next month. Located at Pico and Robertson in West Los Angeles, the 50 seat restaurant will be named Picnic. “I haven’t defined the food yet,” says Segal, “but it will be California, on the light side.” And the name? “We wanted something that was not pretentious, something light and easy,” he explains. “Plus there’s a lot of latticework in the place, and we are going to keep it.”

TRIMMING: Jingo, the restaurant-bar that occupies the former site of the Studio Grill, is now just a bar. The restaurant recently stopped serving dinner. “We wanted to streamline things,” says manager Steve Wegner, “and we didn’t get much business for dinner.”

CLOSING: The Los Angeles branch of Patout’s has closed its doors. According to Liz Patout, owner of the family’s Louisiana restaurant (also called Patout’s), business was slow. “Everybody is already on their way back to Louisiana,” she says.