Etienne Gluck; Chef, San Clemente Restaurateur

Etienne Gluck, 80, a restaurateur of several French eateries named after him in Cleveland, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Palm Desert and San Clemente. The restaurants, which got high ratings from Zagat and other dining guides, offered Old World fine dining and Gluck’s warm charm. Hardly a woman left his restaurants without her hand being kissed. A Hungarian Jew, Gluck was born in 1920. About 12 years later his family moved to Spain. As the civil war there worsened, the Glucks moved to southern France, then later had to flee to the Pyrenees, but Nazis captured Gluck’s brother. When Gluck searched for his brother he too was captured and interred in a concentration camp. The brothers escaped deportation to a death camp by claiming Spanish citizenship and were reunited with their parents. After years working at Paris hotels and restaurants, Gluck’s family immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, where Gluck opened the first Etienne’s, which became a Cleveland Browns hangout in the team’s heyday. In 1958, he married Myrl Mintz and they had two daughters and two sons. His last restaurant was in San Clemente, which he owned from 1985 to 1995, when he retired and sold it. On Sunday in Capistrano Beach, of cancer.