The Mecca of <i> Nouvelle </i> Southwest Closes

St. Estephe, the nouvelle Southwest restaurant famous for its high prices and tiny portions, has closed its doors. Owner Steve Garcia blames the economy.

“Steve’s a great guy, and I know he gave it his every last dying breath,” says super-chef John Sedlar, who opened St. Estephe with Garcia 11 years ago. Originally a modest French restaurant in a Manhattan Beach shopping center, the restaurant gained national fame when Sedlar decided to go back to his New Mexican roots, exploring his heritage of blue corn tortillas, tamales and chile peppers, thereby inventing nouvelle Southwestern cuisine. Sedlar and Garcia dissolved their partnership in 1990 and late last year Sedlar opened the highly acclaimed Bikini in Santa Monica.

“It is unfortunate, but these days restaurants are based on the chef,” says Sedlar. “I would help Steve once in a while with menus. But people like to see the chef when they are at a restaurant, and I promised my partners that I would be 100% dedicated to Bikini.”

MORE ON THE SOUTHWEST FRONT: “After Eureka closed,” says chef Jody Denton, “I didn’t feel that I had the luxury of turning down a great opportunity based on a potential/maybe reopening of Eureka.” So Denton packed his bags and moved to Washington, where he is now in charge of the kitchen at Mark Miller’s hot Red Sage Grill. “This place has an absolutely fabulous potential that is completely untapped,” he says, “and I am really able to come in here and make it what it should be.

But what about Miller’s reputation? “I personally don’t find him difficult to work for,” says Denton. “I know people that have. But Mark is kind of borderline brilliant, and I’ve never known a brilliantly creative person who was absolutely on the normal path.”

ROCKIN’ ‘N’ REEL INN: Deadheads know that Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead is a good guy. When he’s not trying to save the rain forest, he’s raising money for AIDS sufferers, earthquake victims and food banks. He once bicycled 200 miles through Montana’s national forests in a preservation effort, he bankrolled a cereal company run by a Sikh dedicated to saving the Earth, and he has even appeared at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill.

Now he’s moving in a new direction. A branch of the Reel Inn opened two weeks ago in the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, and Weir is the co-owner. The funky, serve yourself family restaurant--the plates are paper, the glasses and flatware are plastic and the menu is on a blackboard--offers nothing but fish and shellfish with prices ranging from $6.95 for fish to $20 for a live lobster

“It was a cutting-edge thing that he wanted to do,” explains Weir’s partner, Jesse Douglas. “This, and the rain forest. Bob is branching out.”

BURN OUT: Paul Bertolli, who has been the chef at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in Berkeley for the past 10 years, will leave the birthplace of California cuisine in September. “I’ve just realized I’ve done what I can for the restaurant,” says Bertolli. “It’s time for me to move on.”

Bertolli, who is in his late thirties, has no specific plans. “I’ve done a lot of writing in the last couple of years, and I’ve done some consulting, so I’m open to any option,” he says. “I just don’t think that I want to be in a kitchen when I’m 50 years old.”

RESTAURANT NOTES: In addition to live piano jazz from 7 p.m. nightly, Geoffrey’s/Malibu has added a late-night supper menu. . . . And Bernard Jacoupy of the bistro/jazz club Lunaria in West L.A. offers a bargain three-course Sunday supper, from 5:30 until closing. Dinner includes choice of soup or salad or small Caesar salad, choice of entrees and a dessert off the regular menu. The cost is $12.95.

HOUSE RULES: The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control came under attack in a recent issue of the Wine House’s Buyer’s Guide for proposing a number of rule changes, including the prohibition of advertising of winemaker diners. “If advertising winemaker dinners is made illegal,” writes the West Los Angeles emporium, “we are at a loss to understand how we or anyone else will be able to conduct them.”

“We were trying to mold a rule which we interpreted as prohibiting a supplier from advertising the business of a specific retailer,” says Donald Decious, the ABC’s chief, business practices, from Sacramento. “We would not let Miller Brewing Co. have a bar night and tell the world through the press that some of their all-stars are going to be there, because that would obviously generate a lot of business for the retailer at the expense of other retailers.”

But Decious says the issue may be moot. “As a result of the testimony and comments that were generated with our proposed rule changes,” he says, “Assembly Bill 2868 was introduced.” If it passes, and there is every reason to believe that it will (it has already passed the assembly side and is now on the Senate calendar), it will take winemaker-dinner regulation out of ABC’s hands. “As a matter of fact,” says Decious, “it will open it up as far as the advertising goes. They can do just about anything they want to do.”