L’Escoffier Taps a Man of Respect for Rebuilt Room

The search for a new chef is over at L’Escoffier. The Beverly Hilton Hotel has hired one of the city’s most respected chefs for its newly redecorated room with a view--Michel Blanchet.

“We are lightening up the food,” says General Manager Richard Cotter. “We certainly want our old customers back, but we believe it’s a room with excitement that can attract new and younger crowds as well.”

“I don’t want to fool myself,” says Blanchet, who found himself suddenly without a job when L’Ermitage, the venerable La Cienega restaurant, closed its doors last year. “There are many things to do, but I want to see how fast I can turn it into a better restaurant.” Blanchet hopes to have his new menu in by Nov. 1.

“You can’t cook if you don’t have the proper equipment to work with,” says Blanchet, “they understand that. So I think little by little I am going to get what I want.” Blanchet has requested a smoker so he can smoke his own salmon as he did at L’Ermitage. He also wants an ice-cream maker.

The food, says Blanchet, will be an updated version of what he cooked at L’Ermitage. He prefers modern French food to California cuisine, “where everything, including the asparagus, is broiled.”

“Many people say the cuisine of L’Ermitage was heavy,” Blanchet says. “That was really a view of traditional French cooking. I plan to do many dishes without butter or cream.” He will also keep some L’Escoffier classics, such as filet mignon with bearnaise sauce. “Those kinds of things, I really can’t escape,” explains Blanchet, “but I want to upgrade the quality and get rid of all the frozen things.”

Has Blanchet met hotel owner Merv Griffin? “No. Not yet,” says Blanchet. “I understand he is going to come this week and try some dishes.”

BASTA PASTA: “Mr. Ruggieri (he owns Bice) and I are parting as great friends,” says chef Patrick Clark, “but Bice is not a company I would like to stay with.” Which is to say that by the time you read this, Clark will have left the trendy Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills. Clark, who gained fame as chef at Odeon in downtown New York, and then went uptown to open his own Metro, pulled up his roots to come to California to cook Italian food. Now he’s going back East to run the restaurants at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington.

“I was on the verge of doing my own place in Los Angeles,” says Clark (who considered the former Trumps as a possible location), “but I just didn’t feel the economic climate was right. Even in this day and age, the landlords are still asking terrific amounts of money for rent.”

Clark will have three restaurants under his charge: A fine dining restaurant (which will reflect his contemporary American cuisine) and two others (which he is free to take in whatever direction that suits his fancy). He’s even been promised a trip to Asia. “I want to learn more about Thailand and Japan and incorporate the cuisine into my repertoire,” he says.

As for his flirtation with Italian food, Clark says it’s not over. “I can’t say I won’t cook Italian food ever again,” he says. “It’s definitely influenced me.”

AS THE CHEFS TURN: George Mahaffey has left his post as chef at the Bel-Air Hotel to cook at mega-mogul Marvin Davis’ Little Nell in Aspen. Gary Clauson, who is currently cooking at the St. James Club, will take Mahaffey’s place at the Bel-Air. No word yet on who is taking Clauson’s place at the very exclusive West Hollywood private club, which only last month opened its restaurant to non-members.

JACKSON’S HOLE?: “We have a vision,” Alan Jackson says. “We hope we are going to do something that is not being done.” Jackson and his chef-partner Lionel Denaud will open a 2,000-square-foot restaurant in a Quonset hut, located catty-corner to the ICM building on Beverly Boulevard, between Robertson and Doheny. The old A-frame corrugated shed will be transformed into a light, airy lodge with big beams, lightly plastered walls and plein-air paintings. “Adirondack, but peeling away the gookiness of Adirondack,” Jackson says.

Jackson says he and Denaud sort of teamed up on the project by mistake. “I was going to use the sous chef from the Inn at Little Washington in Virginia,” Jackson says. “Then someone told me Lionel was going to leave the Hollywood Canteen and I should talk to him. So I walked in there, sat down, and we struck an accord immediately. Believe it or not, Lionel hung up his apron that day, and we’ve been together ever since.” (Meanwhile, Denaud has been marking time by filling in at the Brentwood Bar & Grill.)

The partners are calling their type of food American Provincial. Dishes include salt-crusted fish that will be boned at the table, blackened nouvelle potatoes cooked in clay urns and two house-smoked salmon (pink and a white). They will install a rotisserie large enough to handle a whole stuffed leg of lamb, chicken, duck and game. Entrees will run from $9 to $20.

When it came time to choose a name for the restaurant, they had no problem. “We went through every chichi name,” he says, and then Lionel said, ‘You know, Jackson’s says it all.’ As long as no one gets the idea that we are a beer hall we will be OK.”

BARGAIN: Owner Philip Chiang has opened a Rice & Noodle Shop in what used to be the banquet room in the Mandarin in Beverly Hills. “Real fast food, real inexpensive,” he says. A bowl of Hong Kong-style rice or noodles, beverage, tax and tip will run under $10. The catch? No frills, no tablecloths, no credit cards, no reservations . . . and no more banquet room.