Checkers Chef Plays Waiting Game

“If someone came to me and said, ‘Thomas, here’s a silver platter, open a 20-seat restaurant and do what you want,’ ” says Thomas Keller, chef at Checkers, “well, we are all for sale, aren’t we? But to say I am actively out looking for a job . . . no.”

But Keller confirms that the Kempinski group, which recently took over the hotel, has not renewed his contract. “I don’t think Kempinski knows if they are going to be here next year or not,” Keller says, “so I think it would be a little premature for them to commit to me for a year.”

Keller is noncommittal about it all. “It’s a love-hate relationship,” he says. “The bureaucracy drives me nuts, yet on the other hand the food is getting better and the staff is getting better.”

Keller, who moved from New York to take over the kitchen at the hotel last year, keeps in contact with his old friends; he’s been back to New York four times for meetings of “Chefs From Hell.” Its members (about 15 chefs, mostly under the age of 40) phone each other daily and get together once a month to eat well and raise hell. They often meet, late at night, at the Chefs and Cuisiniers Club on 20th Street, a hangout that even has a bulletin board where chefs post job openings. (The restaurant is also open to the public.)

“When we started out,” Keller says, “it was all men, and one of the bylaws was you had to smoke cigars.” There are now three women members--Anne Rosenzweig of Arcadia, Debra Ponzek of Montrachet and Lydia Bastianich of Felidia’s. “Another bylaw is that someone has to do something to the chef sponsoring the dinner. For instance, Brendan Walsh would drive his motorcycle into the restaurant. . . . Another bylaw is you have to break a bylaw.”

But as much as Keller loves going back to raise hell, he admits that L.A. is growing on him. “Each time I landed in New York,” he says, “I’d get off the plane and say, ‘God, I love this place; I wish I could come back.’ But this last trip, I loved New York--it was a perfect four days--but when I got back and landed at LAX, I thought, ‘It’s good to be home.’ ”

A KINGDOM FOR A SAUSAGE: “Right now I am negotiating with Universal Citywalk, but it’s a very difficult negotiation,” says Jody Maroni, L.A.’s favorite sausage-maker. “I have been yes-no, yes-no for over a year and a half, and I really want it. Now I am just having to wait and bite the bullet until they say yes.”

Maroni, who sells his sausages at Dodger Stadium and at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, just started selling his sausages at Los Angeles International Airport. “We have been open about 10 days at Terminal 1, the commuter terminal, and Terminal 7, which is United,” he says. “This is a test. If it works it will be a big thing to me; Host (the concessionaire) has 50 airports. People who can afford Jody Maroni’s aren’t staying at home.” But Maroni says he’s put off more deals until he hears from Citywalk.

“I’d like to sell sausage sandwiches and beer up there,” he says. “It’s the ideal match. I think I have them convinced, but Universal is big, MCA is bigger, and this Matsushita is beyond belief.”

GOING, GOING . . . : All of the furniture, fixtures and equipment from Stringfellow’s, the glitzy Beverly Hills restaurant-nightclub that closed suddenly last month after filing for Chapter 7 liquidation, will be auctioned off next Sunday at 11 a.m. “We don’t take credit cards,” says Ray Bleau, auctioneer for the restaurant. “Everything will be sold where is, as is, and we require a 25% cash deposit on a word of bid.” For more information, call Bleau at (213) 735-1561.

. . . GONE: Homer & Edy’s Bistro on Robertson Boulevard, one of Los Angeles’s first Cajun and Creole restaurants.

STOCKPOT: So your name isn’t Ovitz, and you can’t get a reservation at Morton’s on Monday night. At La Veranda in Beverly Hills, just whispering the word Morton’s in your waiter’s ear on a Monday night will get you a free dessert or glass of champagne for everyone at your table. . . . In Santa Monica, Hans Rockenwagner is again featuring his white asparagus menu during the vegetable’s brief season. Dishes include roasted veal with a corn crepe and bresaola- wrapped asparagus and a bell pepper coulis. . . . The Malibu Sea Lion is now called Charley Brown’s. . . . Steve Wegner, manager of Jingo, tells us that the West Hollywood restaurant has not completely stopped serving dinner. “The idea was to streamline the restaurant,” he says, “and take away the fine dining. We now serve hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, quesadillas, calamari, stuff like that.”