Search for New L’Orangerie Chef Is Over

The star search is over. L’Orangerie’s Gerard and Virginie Ferry have finally found a chef to replace Jean-Claude Parachini, who left the deluxe French restaurant more than four months ago. It’s Gilles Epie (hey-pee-AY), formerly chef-owner of the one-star Miravile and the more casual Campagne & Provence, and recently food consultant for Lanvin--all in Paris.

“It’s such a change to deal with somebody who has a sense of reality,” says Gerard Ferry. “Most cooks are a pain in the you-know-what. Hopefully, it’s going to work out well. He has a good personality and a good reputation. Jean-Louis Palladin (Watergate in Washington) called me about him. Regis Bulot, the president of Relais & Chateaux, called me about him. Alain Ducasse (of the three-star Ducasse at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo) spoke to me about him.” Epie, who trained with Ducasse and with Alain Senderens at the three-star Lucas-Carton in Paris, plans to have his new menu completed by Tuesday.

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‘I’m Ready for My Close-Up’: Veteran video and TV commercial director Bob Giraldi (who did Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and the Miller Lite commercials) didn’t want to cast just anyone for the part of the snooty maitre d’ in his new commercial for Pacific Bell. He wanted realism. He wanted Bernard.

It was a major ego-op and Bernard Erpicum was only too happy to oblige. “(Bob Giraldi) said he would only do it if he could get me to play the maitre d’,” says Erpicum, who was maitre d’ at Spago for 11 years and now commands the floor at his own restaurant, Eclipse, on Melrose. “Besides, I don’t think that anybody can play a maitre d’ better than a real maitre d’.”

According to Erpicum, now a member of the Screen Actors Guild, the 30-second commercial airs about 50 times a day and brings in lots of business. “It’s fantastic. So many people recognize my face,” he says. “At Spago, I saw 400 people a night, 300 days a year, for 11 years. Now they see me on TV and say, ‘That’s Bernard!’ And they’ve heard that Eclipse is doing so well, and so they say, ‘We’ve got to go see Bernard’s new restaurant!’ ”

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Peace Talks: Kazuto Matsusaka and the owner of Zenzero have decided maybe they can get along after all. The owner, who lives in Japan, and Matsusaka couldn’t agree on how the business should be run. Finally, one day last February, Matsusaka walked out of the Santa Monica restaurant. “Too many coaches,” Matsusaka said at the time. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”

But now Matsusaka is back in charge of the kitchen. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be here,” he says. “They needed somebody and I was available. So I said, ‘Why not?’ I needed the money.”

Tony Donofrio, who briefly took over the helm after Matsusaka’s departure, is now executive chef at One Market, Bradley Ogden’s big all-American restaurant in San Francisco.

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Bird Brainstorm: So what if Old Pasadena is already inundated with restaurants. That isn’t stopping Scott Gallagher and partners from opening one more.

“I would never have purchased a restaurant in Old Town with all the restaurants here,” says Gallagher, who once managed Mi Piace, McCormick & Schmick’s, Water Grill, Pappagallo and the Ritz Grill. “It’s just that I’ve had this concept in my head for about two years and finally found the right space.”

Gallagher’s brainchild, Magpie, opens June 5 in the Tanner Marketplace, where Pappagallo and then Columbia Bar and Grill floundered. A big, roomy place and a pared-down menu is what Gallagher has in mind. Named after the chattering scavenger bird, the restaurant features a magpie decor (!), seats about 200 and has a menu of about 30 items. Magpie’s entrees will range from $5-$15. Cheep, cheep.

“We’re going to do some signature things,” Gallagher says. “Some signature dressings, some signature salads, a signature French fry, a signature meatloaf. . . . We want to go back to terrific-tasting food and not play any games with presentation, like trying to make a 4-ounce piece of fish look like 8 ounces.”

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Kang Update: Westsiders will have to keep trekking to Pasadena’s Yujean Kang for the lobster with fava beans, caviar and chiles--at least for a while. According to Kang, he is still in negotiations to open another Yujean Kang in West Hollywood. The restaurant that he’s negotiating to take over, the 26-year-old Alberto’s Ristorante, whose signature dish is chicken pappagallo, is still open for business.

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Sad Goodby: The restaurant community mourns Michel Maupuy, longtime lunch chef in the ‘70s at the original Ma Maison. The 51-year-old Maupuy, who most recently cooked in Milwaukee, died of pancreatic cancer.

“He was a real classic, traditional French cook with a great sense of humor,” says Patrick Terrail, who pioneered serious food and casual decor at Ma Maison. “A real Frenchman in the bon vivant sense of the term. He always liked to cook old classical saucy dishes like a chicken in a wine sauce or a ragout. He was really good at that stuff.”

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Fusion Schmoozin’: David Slatkin had planned to call his new South Bay restaurant Fusion, coincidentally the same as the restaurant due to open in July in the Pacific Design Center. Now, Slatkin has renamed his place South Bay Fusion. And the Design Center restaurant will be called fusion at pdc. “There was some confusion about Fusion,” Slatkin says, “so we met with the owners of the other restaurant and worked out a compromise.”

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Palace Cook: Beverly Hills Hotel CEO Kerman Beriker has brought in longtime loyal chef Greg Waldron to head the kitchens when the pink-and-green palace reopens in June. Waldron also worked for Beriker at the Bel-Air Hotel.

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Openings: Fans of late-night dining will be happy to know that Mars Restaurant & Bar has opened in West Hollywood, next to Cicada, in what was once Harold Lloyd’s carriage house. According to co-owner Andrew Wainrib, the cozy, 40-seat restaurant serves dinner until 1 a.m. and features Southwestern cuisine and Pacific Rim specials. . . .

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