Five-Star General

First went the nude oils on the wall. Then the red velvet chairs were discreetly whisked away for a trip to the upholsterer.

In came a subdued but richly detailed peach brocade to match the swirls on the original wallpaper. Up went the witty Guy Buffet lithographs. And slowly, very slowly, the shorts that the waitresses have sported for two decades are being traded for trousers.

Now, Hans Prager has taken the ultimate step to ensure that his legendary house of fine dining, the Ritz, will continue to flourish into the new millennium. After two decades of tending to every minute detail and greeting diners with his customary old-world graciousness, Prager, 67, will turn over the daily chores of running the restaurant to a new partner.

Philip Crowley, who was groomed for 25 years at Lawry’s Five Crowns restaurant in Corona del Mar, will oversee the five distinct rooms serving critically acclaimed continental cuisine. Crowley also will be responsible for instituting the inevitable changes the five-star restaurant will have to make to avoid the pitfalls that toppled such famed fine-dining establishments as the original Chasen’s and Le St. Germain in Los Angeles, both of which closed during the brutal recession of the early 1990s.

“Change is so rapid in this world, if we don’t keep up with it we’re history,” Prager said.

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For his first assignment, Crowley will preside over the opening this spring of a 100-table garden dining area designed to attract the more casual diner.

Change in the fussy world of fine dining can be a perilous thing, analysts say. Move too fast and restaurateurs risk alienating their most loyal customers. Move too slowly and they fail to attract younger diners who generally prefer more casual restaurants that offer excellent food and good service without all the fanfare.

“If you change radically, you compromise the market you have,” says Los Angeles restaurant consultant Robert Patterson. “You need to change dishes and make subtle changes in decor. If McDonald’s had never changed its menu, they wouldn’t be in business today.”

For two decades, the Ritz has borne Prager’s imprint--reflected in the elegant, oak-paneled rooms and the black leather booths that he long ago decided would give it the “masculine” and “clubby” look he wanted to achieve.

But Prager, whose instincts for the subtleties of the high-wire restaurant business are as impeccable as his manners, is getting tired. He still plans to spend many hours at the restaurant, tinkering with the menu, chatting with his customers and mulling over long-term plans. But the daily work will be done by Crowley, allowing Prager “to retreat to an area I really feel comfortable in--the kitchen and the bar.”

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There were no independent restaurants in Orange County to equal the Ritz when Prager opened for business at an oceanfront location in 1977, said veteran restaurant consultant Phyllis Ann Marshall. The establishment was small--only 12 tables--but the Ritz quickly developed a reputation as the place where the county’s elite could hobnob over white tablecloths.

Five years later, one of the regulars, Pacific Mutual chief executive Walter Gerkin, persuaded Prager to move to its current much larger site at Fashion Island--which was a stone’s throw from Gerkin’s office.

Drawing on 40 years of experience gained in some of the country’s best eateries, Prager set out to develop an elegant restaurant in a county that had long taken a back seat to L.A.’s fine-dining establishments.

“Orange County has always had very elegant restaurants within our hotels,” Marshall said. “But we didn’t really have anything of this grandeur or size. It attracted the core business and social set almost immediately. This came at a time when it was needed and wanted.”

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The road to the Ritz was a circuitous one for Prager.

He was born in the small town of Oppeln, Germany, where his father owned a prosperous liquor company. “We had a nanny, a cook, a chauffeur, and I never really knew anything else,” Prager recalled.

When the Nazis gained control, his father moved the family to Shanghai, China, one of the few cities that offered sanctuary to Jewish refugees who did not have sponsors.

That’s where Prager landed his first restaurant job--peeling potatoes and busing at the Fiaker. Fritz Strehlen, a dislocated actor from Vienna, had opened the restaurant, placing a window between the dining room and the kitchen so the guests could watch his dramatic cooking technique.

Prager, then 15, thought it was the best show around. “I liked the part of the business that was stage business,” he said. “I liked being on a stage. . . . I think the restaurant business got me over being shy.”

He was nearly 18 years old when the Pragers got word from the Red Cross that a relative in Beverly Hills was searching for the family. Prager is still awed that the Red Cross and the United Jewish Welfare Fund would search them out and bring them to the United States.

Charitable groups in Newport Beach and around the county would be the beneficiaries of his gratitude. “A lot of what I’ve done has been repayment for that,” said Prager, whose “Ritz Brothers” club has raised more than $1 million for Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and other health and children’s causes.

Soon after landing in Los Angeles in 1947, Prager began working as a cook’s helper at the glamorous Scandia restaurant, eventually becoming morning cook even though he “was barely able to fry two eggs.”

Within a few years he joined New York’s Waldorf-Astoria as an apprentice, the common route in those days for budding chefs to learn their trade. He was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the great hotel. “If I had had the money I would have gone back home, I was so scared,” he said.

After a stint in the Army during the Korean War--he was assigned to create hors d’oeuvres for officers at the Presidio in San Francisco--he returned to the Scandia and became head chef at the age of 29. From there he perfected his art at a number of high-toned restaurants, opening several that never quite took off--until the Ritz.

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At the Fashion Island location, Prager helped design every detail, building on all the charm of every fine restaurant he had worked in. He decided early on to hire only women to wait tables because he thought they would be more friendly and less snooty than men.

They wore formal jackets, but he dressed them in shorts and dark stockings to loosen things up. But he still managed to maintain a fine-dining atmosphere for hundreds of lunch and dinner customers daily.

He is meticulous and employees may find him a tough taskmaster. But this attention to detail is crucial to success, experts say. “You can tell about the eyes of a great restaurateur,” says industry consultant Marshall. “They always sit where they can watch the action. He may be giving you his undivided attention, but he is watching everything.”

At the Ritz, employees constantly are buffing and polishing the ornate lamps and mirrors. Prager notices every lightbulb that burns out in the restaurant, while ignoring lamps that go out at home for weeks, jokes his wife, Charlene, the restaurant’s controller.

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That perfectionist drive--and Prager’s knowledge of cooking--helped win accolades from customers and professional associations. Among a wall of commendations hangs the Conde Nast Traveler magazine’s “Best Service in America” award. The prestigious magazine named the Ritz the 13th best restaurant in the country. The Wine Spectator also bestowed its Award for Excellence.

“Hans is a charismatic, energetic owner,” said Jack J. Kayajanian, a longtime friend and customer. “He has a tremendous passion for what he does. He’s got that feel, that touch. . . . I’ve traveled all over and eaten in the finest restaurants and this is as good as it gets.”

But Prager has been feeling his age. He finds himself ever more intolerant of the difficult, finicky customer and demanding employees. He flatly refuses to learn new technology, including the Ritz’s computerized cashier system.

“It’s time,” Prager said. “I want to be the elder statesman who appears in the restaurant and greets guests and let Phil handle all those administrative issues.”

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The Ritz at a Glance

* Location: Fashion Island Newport Beach

* Founded: 1977 near the Newport Pier; relocated to Fashion Island in 1982

* Managing partner: Philip Crowley

* Seats: 300 (expands to 400 in May)

* Cuisine: Continental

* Annual gross revenue: More than $5 million

* Popular menu items: Rotisserie rack of lamb, Bavarian duck, ossobuco (braised veal shank)

* Awards: Golden Scepter, by Southern California Restaurant Writers Assn.; Best Service in America, Conde Nast Traveler Magazine; Top Food and Service, Zagat Guide; Fine Dining Hall of Fame, Nation’s Restaurant News; DiRona Award, Distinguished Restaurants of North America Assn.; Award of Excellence, Wine Spectator magazine and Four Diamond Award, American Automobile Assn.

* Entree price range: $18 to $32

Source: The Ritz

Los Angeles Times

Profile: Hans Prager

Age: 67

Birthplace: Oppeln, Germany (now in Poland)

Residence: Corona del Mar

Education: Left the Shanghai (China) Jewish School in 11th grade to start working; attended USC business management courses

Career: Apprenticed as a chef at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel, 1948-1950; executive chef at Scandia restaurant in Los Angeles off and on, 1947-1959; executive chef at Lawry’s specialty restaurants, including Five Crowns in Corona del Mar, 1959-1969

Restaurants founded: Gulliver’s, Newport Beach, 1971; Bell and Crown, Westminster, 1975; the Ritz, Newport Beach, 1977; Yankee Tavern in Newport Beach, 1990, and Laguna Niguel 1994

Personal: Married to Charlene Prager, 48, controller of The Ritz; two children, Karen, 43, and Michael, 38, and two stepchildren, Ryan, 34, and Marta, 36

Source: Hans Prager