C’est Fan Fan Folds, Chez Izumi Opens

C’est Fan Fan, Los Angeles’ tiniest trendy restaurant, has closed its doors. The 12-seat Franco-Chinese restaurant on the western edge of Echo Park was rated Los Angeles’ second-best restaurant in the 1992 Zagat Restaurant Survey. (In the 1993 Survey, the restaurant dropped to sixth place, ahead of such establishments as Citrus, Valentino, L’Orangerie and Spago.) Chef-owner Hajime Kaki, a veteran of Chinois on Main and New York’s China Grill, could not be reached for comment.

The space, once home to Lyon and then Chabuya, now houses Chez Izumi. Owner Hiro Izumi is serving lunch and dinner at his Japanese-French restaurant, but “no Chinese.”

POSTRIO SOUTH?: Kimco, the San Francisco-based hotel and restaurant management company known for its one-of-a-kind European-style “boutique” hotels--many paired with esteemed restaurants--will soon open its first Southern California property, Beverly Hills adjacent. The 140-room Beverly Prescott Hotel is scheduled to open in April on the site of the former Beverly Hillcrest Hotel.

According to sources, Kimco management has been talking to major restaurateurs about developing the hotel’s 150-seat restaurant and 200-seat 12th-floor banquet room. These include Bruce Cost, former chef-owner of San Francisco’s Monsoon, and our own Wolfgang Puck, who already owns a share in the 140-seat Postrio, located inside Kimco’s plush Prescott Hotel in San Francisco.

Kimco’s Bob Puccini confirmed he’s talked to the restaurateurs. “But our talks have gone from the East Coast to the West Coast,” he says. “Most of these conversations were just to explore.”

While Kimco management hasn’t decided on a chef or a type of cuisine, Puccini did say the moderately priced restaurant would take on the personality of the person they choose. “There has to be a relationship there, a comfort that everybody is moving in the same direction,” he says. “Even though we know a lot of these people like Bruce and Wolf, we need to make sure that our ideas parallel.”

BYE-BYE BOSC: After being closed since the holidays and losing its chef, Castel Bistro has reopened with a new menu and lower prices. Sous-chef Daniel Samet is now in charge of the kitchen. Meanwhile, former chef-partner Jean-Pierre Bosc, who trained under Paul Bocuse, says he is pursuing other opportunities. “The restaurant was not doing good,” says Bosc, who left La Serre to open the California-French seafood bistro last year, “and the place has been put up for sale.”

BYE-BYE IL BARBONE: Il Barbone, the Melrose Avenue restaurant located in the former Rondo space, has closed . . . after seven days. “Unfortunately, the owner (Ray Rivas) did not live up to his part of the contract,” James Saliba says. Saliba--partnered with Tom Bailey in the San Fernando Valley’s La Loggia and Barsac Brasserie--opened the Italian restaurant with Bailey and Rivas.

“It wasn’t a matter of me living up to the agreement,” Rivas responds, “as much as the two of them being indecisive. Maybe they bit off more than they can chew in trying to manage three restaurants, and then realized it was just too much for them.”

Since he had already sunk more than $30,000 in make-over costs, Rivas has again reopened, renaming the restaurant, Rondo Novo. “I wasn’t nuts about the name Il Barbone, “ Rivas says. “I couldn’t explain to people exactly what it meant.” But he has kept several Il Barbone dishes and plans to add more Mediterranean items, including a fettuccine with orange and lemon rinds, “from a recipe I stole from a restaurant magazine.”