Charbonneau Moves On : Chasen’s loses its executive manager to Chez Gilles; Jockey Club needs furniture.

The Chasen’s Beat: Chasen’s owner Grady Sanders just lost his executive manager, Albert Charbonneau, to Chez Gilles. This is not totally surprising--Charbonneau used to work with chef-owner Gilles Epie at L’Orangerie, and Chasen’s is, after all, a fairly un-French restaurant. Epie had been courting Charbonneau for a while.

Chasen’s has replaced him with Freddy Kernbach, a 27-year veteran of the restaurant industry. Kernbach spent 14 years at the Bistro Garden and 12 at Scandia, and was most recently at Hamilton’s Bar.

As for Chasen’s Jockey Club, the long-awaited second-floor private dining and cigar club: A small private party was held there Monday night sans furniture, so look for its opening soon. (Somebody get IKEA on the horn, quick.)

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A Pretty Big Mac: Speaking of furniture, we hear there’s a giant piece of macaroni available, formerly adorning Melrose Place Restaurant. It seems the prodigious pasta was installed on the building a couple of years ago when artist Galgano was being showcased in the dining room below. A piece of macaroni is his signature/symbol, see--it shows up in all of his works. But Melrose Place doesn’t specialize in pasta, or have any particular reason to keep the enormous noodle up there, so down it came. Guess we’d better find another landmark on La Cienega.

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Two for Rix: A new landmark may be the soon to open Rix Restaurant in Santa Monica (target date is July 25, but don’t hold your breath). Owner Will Karges has not only reeled in Chef Matt McLinn of Morton’s but as of Monday he’d hooked Chris Bocchino from Michael’s as well. The two chefs know each other and the chemistry in the kitchen should be just right. (But how many chefs does it take to make mashed potatoes?)

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The Elias Position: Michael Elias, the last of the investors in the original Spago, wants to set the record straight about the results of his recent arbitration settlement. The screenwriter-director was awarded $71,621--for use of the Spago name and for damages from competition to the old Spago--from Wolfgang Puck and Donald Salk. But this isn’t what Elias wanted. He was hoping either for an interest in the new Beverly Hills Spago or for the arbitrator to bar Puck from opening a new Spago in Beverly Hills outside of the original partnership.

Elias joined the partnership in 1981 when Puck was, he says “just a chef at Ma Maison, albeit a great one” (to be fair, he was the chef who’d made Ma Maison famous). Elias maintains that he and the other original Spago investors were not given a real opportunity to buy into the new Spago. Instead, Puck offered to buy them out at $25,000 a share--the original investment having been $15,000 a share. Peter Appleton, Elias’ lawyer, claims shares in the new Spago went for at least three times that. Elias feels the least Puck could have done was to offer the original (read: loyal to the guy when he really was a risk) investors a realistic chance to be a part of the new Spago commodity.

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Larry King vs. Eclipse: If you’ve been following this saga, you know that Larry King wrote in his USA Today column last week that Eclipse in West Hollywood was being bought. Eclipse owner Bernard Erpicum bristled at the assertion and fired off a statement to the contrary. This week, King printed part of Erpicum’s statement in a nod to fairness. (We printed the whole thing last week.) Both sides still maintain that their story is the truth. So far, no sale (meaning Erpicum 1, King 0). King will be having dinner at Eclipse next week, so we’ll all find out soon enough what happens. Keep you posted.

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Palato palate: Gino Angelini, former chef at Rex il Ristorante and co-owner/chef of the soon-to-open Vincenti in Brentwood, will be cooking a series of special dinners at Alto Palato in West Hollywood on July 22, July 29, Aug. 21 and Aug. 28. Cost for the four-course menus will be $48 to $55. Limited seating. Alto Palato, 755 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood; (310) 657-9271.

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Sweet 25: Mirabelle has gotten a face-lift for its 25th birthday. Jay Payne is the architect who handled the extensive renovation, giving the Sunset Boulevard fixture an Old World ship theme. The nicest features of the redesign include the hand-hammered copper bar top on the patio (a real beauty) and the receding roof panels that cover the patio dining area. The feel is cozy and breezy, reminiscent of Florida. (Well, maybe Florida’s not the Old World, but it’s pretty old.) Mirabelle, 8768 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles; (310) 659-6022.