Slatkin Putting His Energy Into Fusion

David Slatkin was busily cooking his spicy Caribbean cuisine at tropical-themed Descanso in Hermosa Beach until the owners abruptly decided to change course. Slatkin left to try to open his own place. After restaurant-shopping all over, the chef is back in the casual beach town, where he plans to open his own place next month. Located in the former La Traviata space, the 60-seat restaurant will feature California/Hawaiian/Caribbean/Asian cuisine with entrees in the $11 to $17 range, plus a five-course $25 tasting menu.

Just don’t expect the same food Slatkin cooked at Descanso. “All my life I’ve been training at a certain level,” says Slatkin. “When I worked at L’Orangerie and Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles and in New York at Ariel’s, the River Cafe and then Chef Allen in Miami, I was used to four- and five-star food. At Descanso I had to downscale it a little bit to meet (owners) Michael (Franks) and Robert’s (Bell) expectations. Now that I own this restaurant, I can do what I please. And I want to bring the food back up to the level of, say, Citrus or Patina or Eclipse and really concentrate on freshness and giving it that touch I’m so used to.”

Slatkin is calling his restaurant Fusion, coincidentally, the same name as the restaurant due to open this July in the Pacific Design Center.

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Loaves and Fishes: Eli Zabar is expanding again. Last year, the master bread baker turned restaurateur (E.A.T.) opened Eli’s Vinegar Factory in a 19th-Century building he owns on New York’s East Side. (It’s his father who founded Zabar’s, the famous West Side food emporium.) First, he installed a gourmet food shop and showcase for the handcrafted breads produced at his bakery next door.

Next month an upstairs restaurant will open for breakfast and lunch only. He isn’t through yet: He keeps adding to the concept. The attached garage has been transformed into a fish market. And his latest bright idea is to turn the space that serves breakfast and lunch into a fish restaurant at night. Just one name, though: Eli’s Vinegar Factory.

At breakfast and lunch you can order traditional items like bagels and lox, sourdough pancakes, soups, salads and sandwiches. “I want to keep it simple during the day,” he says. “I don’t want people to stay too long.”

At dinner he plans to feature fresh fish and seafood from the downstairs market. “You’ll be able to walk around the fish market, decide what fish you want to eat,” Zabar explains. “Then upstairs, you tell the waiter, ‘I want that funny-looking monkfish.’ ” While someone runs downstairs to get the fish, the waiter lists the different ways you could have it prepared.

Although the restaurant won’t be open for dinner until May, Zabar is still in search of a fish cookery specialist. So far, he’s talked to chefs in New York and Seattle. “There’s just tons and tons of fish here,” says Zabar, “but we still need somebody to do the cooking.” Meanwhile, Zabar has one other teeny problem to solve.

“The restaurant overlooks the market,” he says, “so people can drop fish bones on the people shopping down there.”

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Ups and Downs: Although it only opened in December, the answering machine at Sophie Healy’s Pastiche on Melrose announces the restaurant is closed temporarily for remodeling and will reopen with a new, exciting look. . . . The Beverly Hills branch of Mezzaluna has folded, but business at its Brentwood branch, for obvious reasons, is still booming.

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Dance Fever: The hottest hotel dining room in town isn’t the Ritz Carlton or the Bel-Air but the Regent Beverly Wilshire. That’s where the Arthur Hanlon trio re-creates the ‘40s ballroom on Friday and Saturday nights. With the closing of the Beverly Hilton’s rooftop L’Escoffier room last year, the Regent is now the only place on the Westside offering fine dining and live dance music in such an elegant setting.

For more restaurant news see Thursday’s Food Section and Sunday’s Los Angeles Times Magazine.