Celestino Loses Its Name but Not Its Place

The divorce is final. After almost 10 years as partners in the Beverly Hills Italian restaurant Celestino, chef Celestino Drago and investor Art Vella are parting ways. (After a dispute with Vella, the chef left the restaurant in 1991 to open Drago in Santa Monica, but until now he had retained 50% ownership.)

With the partners’ long-running lawsuit now settled (Vella gets the restaurant and Drago gets back his first name), Vella can’t keep calling the place by his former partner’s first name. He’s renamed it Cent’ Anni (A Hundred Years). “I chose the name because we’ve been here 10 years and we expect to be around in another 90,” says Vella. Everything else remains the same, he insists, including the menu and the phone number.

Celestino Drago is unhappy with that. “I haven’t had anything to do with the restaurant for over three years, and yet he (Vella) never changed the menu, never hired another chef. He just kept on with the same people who were working there when I left,” comments Drago. “And I had to spend a lot of money in this lawsuit to protect my name and reputation, but at least now I have my name back.”

Vella disagrees, citing head chef Tony Zizo, hired after Drago left.

Meanwhile, Drago reports he’s found a location for a second Il Pastaio, his casual, inexpensive pasta place in Beverly Hills. It’s on South Lake Street in Pasadena, the present site of BJ’s Grill. Escrow should close at the end of October, says the Sicilian-born chef, and he plans to open there the following month.

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Mesa Mexicana: Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger are celebrating the publication of their new cookbook “Mesa Mexicana” with a special prix fixe dinner at their Santa Monica restaurant, the Border Grill, on Wednesday. The menu will be a sampling of recipes from the book and everyone who attends will get an autographed copy. As a special enticement, they’ve also planned a tequila tasting. The $55 tariff includes tax and gratuity.

Bone Gnawers Alert: This Sunday, rib fanciers can try to second-guess the panel of judges at the Annual Rib Cookoff at the Red Lion hotel in Glendale, a benefit for the Lion’s Clubs’ Wilderness Camp for deaf children.

For this first cook-off, nine local restaurants and caterers will be vying to take home prizes for “best ribs” or “best sauce” and dispensing pork ribs, baby back ribs, beef ribs and more from their outdoor stands. (Samples will run $2 to $3.) “These kinds of events are very big in the Midwest,” says organizer Peter Dills, son of local radio personality Elmer Dills, “and I’m trying to get the same kind of momentum going in Southern California.”

Participants include 101 West at the Red Lion hotel, Country Star Hollywood in Universal City and its “world famous cowboy chef” Layne Wootten, Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas Barbeque in Van Nuys, and Rib Ticklers in Saticoy (Ventura County).

Admission is $7.

Information: (818) 796-5049.

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Big Band Brunch: Pangaea in the Hotel Nikko in Beverly Hills introduces Paul Turner and his Big Band as featured entertainers for their new Big Band Sunday Brunch. While you sidle up to the big breakfast buffet or reminisce over a glass of champagne, the 14-piece band will play everything from Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey tunes to George Gershwin. Adults $32; children under 12, $16.

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All-Star Menu: Forte Hotels, owners of the tony Plaza Athenee and Westbury Hotel in New York, the Watergate in D.C. and the King Edward Hotel in Toronto will host a luncheon next week at Citrus in Los Angeles to present some of the dishes the hotels’ chefs “have prepared for movie stars, celebrities and heads of states.”

Clint Eastwood’s favorite tartare of fresh vegetables and tomato coulis opens the four-course meal. Chilled Maine lobster with fennel and avocado is dedicated to hometown star Cher, while the Queen Mother is represented by tea-smoked salmon. Now which course could be Liz Taylor’s? Dessert, no question. But brownies with seasonal fruit sorbet? Pretty down-to-earth for someone who wears all those big rocks.

Kathie Jenkins, who usually writes this column, is on vacation.