Partnership Project Now on Front Burner

The Making of the Jar: Close friends Mark Peel, owner of Campanile, and Suzanne Tracht, most recently the chef at Jozu, are opening a restaurant together. They’ve been talking about it for years--a neighborhood place for American food, a modern steakhouse. This month, they are close to realizing their dream. With a location off Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles still in escrow, the two have joined forces with David Rosoff, general manager of Michael’s in Santa Monica. This project, totally separate from Campanile, should be completed this summer.

“We want to target the restaurant community, our friends,” says Peel. About the menu, Tracht told us: “We’re really going to focus on nice meat items for the entrees . . . , heavy on the seafood for the appetizers.” The working name of this restaurant-in-progress is the Jar (an inside joke between Peel and Tracht). Information and updates will be posted on their Web site: https://www.thejar.com.

A Shorter Drive: The Westwood Center building in Westwood has completed its overhaul and now boasts a new restaurant on the ground floor. (From 1969 to 1999, the building’s penthouse housed Monty’s Steakhouse, which closed halfway through renovations.) Opening instead is the Napa Valley Grille, whose parent corporation is Constellation Concepts, which owns, among other restaurants, Cafe del Rey. Napa Valley Grille is designed to evoke a vacation to wine country.

Murals of California’s wine country are painted on the walls, and the decor reflects Napa sensibilities and earthiness. Sommelier Robert Cross (of Bernard’s at the Biltmore Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air) has picked 300 California wines for his list, mostly from Napa Valley. Chef Frank Fronda comes from the Napa Valley Grille in New Jersey. (There’s also a NVG in San Diego.)

The dinner menu is seven categories: starters, salads, pastas, “little plates,” main courses, items from the brick oven and (additional) side plates. The little plates are meant to be put together into a tasting menu combination of three ($13.95) or six ($24.95) plates. Wine can be paired with your tasting menus for an extra $6 or $12, respectively. Main courses run from grilled salmon ($19.95) to center-cut filet mignon with Gorgonzola ravioli ($26.95). Verite Mazzola from Thalia in New York and Cafe del Rey is the pastry chef. Napa Valley Grille is serving dinner nightly and lunch Monday through Friday.

* Napa Valley Grille, in the Westwood Center, 1100 Glendon Ave., Westwood; (310) 824-3322.

New Tea: The owners of Zen Zoo tea in Brentwood, where you can sip boba tea with tapioca pearls through fat straws, have just opened Lucky Buddha in Westwood Village. Lucky Buddha serves more of those trendy Chinese teas with such cute names as Buddha Bubbles, Buddha Brews, Buddha Bing and Buddha Boba. Along with a litany of crunchy, sparkling and chewy teas ($3.50-$4), Lucky Buddha serves snack foods like dumplings, fried tofu, chicken wings and ginger salad ($3.60-$5.40) from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.

* Lucky Buddha, 10948 Weyburn, Westwood; (310) 209-6288.

R.I.P.: DC3, the restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport, has closed. Chef Brett Thompson recently left to cook at Joachim Splichal’s Catal restaurant in Downtown Disney.

Trojan Wine: USC has teamed with Merryvale Vineyards to put on a series of wine dinners at the university. Tonight they throw their first dinner in the new Vineyard Room. The four-course meal plus hors d’oeuvres begins at 5:30 p.m. The main course is either grilled salmon on a bed of braised fennel or New Zealand lamb chops with saffron risotto. The tab for food, wine, tax and tip is $75.

* The Davidson Conference Center, USC, 3415 S. Figueroa St., downtown L.A.; (213) 740-5219.

Vive la Provence: As part of the Marseilles-Provence Week festivities, some Provencal chefs have been flown to L.A. to cook with local chefs. Here are two restaurants hosting collaborative dinners during the week of Jan. 27-Feb. 3.

Jean-Francois Meteigner of La Cachette welcomes Gerard Clor from the one-star restaurant L’Escale into his kitchen to cook a four-course meal with canapes at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. They’ll be making Provencal fish soup, Maine lobster salad, grilled dorade, frozen nougat and chocolate truffles. Each course is paired with wine. The price is $110 plus tax and tip.

* La Cachette, 10506 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City; (310) 470-4992.

Josiah Citrin hosts Xavier Mathieu of Hostellerie La Phebus at Melisse Feb. 1-3. The two are putting together a four-course tasting menu with choices including crayfish pot au feu, roasted lamb chop and filet of beef with potato grenailles, black truffles and date jus. The tasting menu costs $65 plus tax and tip.

* Melisse, 1104 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica; (310) 395-0881.

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For more information about Marseilles-Provence week, call (310) 789-0089 or visit https://event.provencetourism.com.

Angela Pettera can be reached at (213) 237-3153 or at pettera@prodigy.net