Bistro 201’s Owners File for Bankruptcy : Restaurants: The Irvine eatery has been closed in a dispute over back rent but may reopen as early as Tuesday.

The parent company for Bistro 201 has filed for bankruptcy protection in connection with a bitter rent dispute that will leave the tony Irvine restaurant dark for at least the weekend.

David Wilhelm, a celebrated chef and an owner of West Coast Restaurant Ventures Inc., said his attorneys filed a Chapter 11 reorganization petition late Thursday afternoon after the 4-year-old restaurant was padlocked and an eviction notice was posted on the door.

The other two restaurants owned by West Coast--Kachina in Laguna Beach and Zuni Grill in Irvine--will remain open, their managers said.

The bankruptcy filing is intended to protect West Coast’s nearly $50,000 in assets until it can work out a payment schedule with its Tokyo-based landlord, Wilhelm said.

“Legal counsel advised us this was the only protection we would have,” he said. “That’s the single and sole reason we declared this. It’s not that the company has problems being solvent. The problem is with a bankruptcy filing, everyone thinks you’re going out of business.”

Bistro 201 may be open again as early as Tuesday, Wilhelm said.

The declaration of bankruptcy comes just one month after Taco Bell in Irvine hired Wilhelm, who is famed for his signature California cuisine, to consult in a venture to open a nationwide chain of upscale restaurants with a Southwestern flavor. Wilhelm once worked for El Torito Grill, developing dishes for the 200-restaurant chain.

The bankruptcy petition, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana, was a last-minute decision, said Gibson Pagter, an attorney for West Coast.

“It was an emergency filing,” Pagter said.

Attorneys for the company had believed that as late as Thursday an agreement was near on repayment of some $230,000 in back rent to the landlord, Pagter said.

The rent amount was the subject of a court dispute--settled about two weeks ago--when a judge ordered Wilhelm to pay the back rent, he said. Wilhelm said he had requested a payment schedule, the landlord denied it, and U.S. marshals served an eviction notice and closed Bistro 201 on Thursday.

Company attorneys originally sought an injunction against the eviction in order to reopen the restaurant by Friday, Pagter said. But late Thursday afternoon, the strategy was switched and the bankruptcy papers were filed, he said.

Pagter said that attorneys hoped to schedule a hearing by Tuesday to obtain permission to reorganize and have a judge order repayment of the debt on “reasonable business terms.”

“This will be a quick and successful reorganization,” Pagter said. “All our restaurants are profitable.”

Wilhelm’s other restaurants, Diva in Costa Mesa and the Topaz Cafe at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana, are not part of West Coast Restaurant Ventures, he said, and so are unaffected by the financial wranglings. Wilhelm is also a consulting partner with Roxbury, the Santa Ana nightclub that opened in February.