Is lunch the new dinner?

COULD it be that the endangered species known as lunch at a serious restaurant is making a comeback?

Though there are longtime holdouts, such as Spago, Lucques, Michael’s, La Cachette and Patina, lunch is notoriously unlucrative for restaurateurs. Operating expenses midday are the same as at dinnertime, but just for one seating, and one at which diners tend to order fewer courses. Lunchers rarely order alcohol, which is where restaurants make a lot of their money. And if that’s not difficult enough, diners generally aren’t willing to pay for lunch what they do for dinner, so restaurateurs have to charge less for the same dishes.

So why have three newish restaurants -- Wilshire, Providence and Dakota -- recently debuted lunch service? Why even bother?

“For me, lunch is the business card for dinner,” says Donato Poto of Providence, which offers lunch just three days a week: Wednesday through Friday. “Even though financially it might not be as profitable [as dinner], if you make a little bit of money, it’s still better than not opening at all. You introduce your restaurant to many more people.”

Harvey Friend, general manager at Wilshire in Santa Monica, has a similar point of view. “We’re a neighborhood restaurant, and it’s a service we can offer,” he says. “Knowing that so many restaurants are not open for lunch was another incentive for us to be open.”

All three restaurants are courting daytime diners with appealing, moderately priced menus featuring lighter dishes and Los Angeles lunchtime favorites.

At Wilshire, for example, there’s an entree-size grilled vegetable salad for $12 and a burger and fries for $14. Across town at Providence, diners can try clam cakes for $11 or roasted Tasmanian sea trout for $19. And a little more than a week ago, Hollywood’s Dakota introduced three bento box-inspired “power lunches”: platters featuring four separate items, including dessert, priced between $32 and $37.

Poto has been actively spreading the word that Providence serves lunch, calling people who work in the area (on Melrose, not far from Paramount and Raleigh Studios) on the recommendation of restaurant regulars and other contacts. And when he has to disappoint callers seeking dinner reservations because the restaurant is booked, he suggests they come in for lunch. “Out of 10 phone calls,” he says, “you have one that says yes to lunch.”

So what kinds of crowds -- or not? -- are these restaurants seeing for the midday meal? Wilshire has been averaging about 75 lunches a day, says Friend, and “for us, that’s a good number.” The crowd, he says, has been “a little more mature” than at dinnertime, when the place is buzzing with women in little black dresses. Many of the diners, he says, come from nearby businesses on Wilshire Boulevard, as well as St. John’s Health Center, the Water Garden complex and MTV, all of which are just a few blocks away.

People are ordering bottles of wine at lunch too. “Our dinner wine sales represent about 22% of total sales,” says Friend. “Lunch wine sales represent about 17%.”

Providence has been seeing anywhere from 20 to 40 people for lunch. Some of them even order a multi-course tasting menu. “The ideal is to fill up the place,” says Poto. “Our budget was for about 50 or 60 lunches.”

Alas, admits Poto, “no one has the magic hat. I thought I had the magic touch at Bastide, and I didn’t.” (Early on, Bastide served lunch. But it just couldn’t generate enough interest to keep it going.) On the other hand, he says, “I strongly believe it depends on the location of the restaurant and how the restaurant portrays themselves. If you are really, really fancy, you have a slimmer chance of making it for lunch.”

Hotel restaurants, meanwhile, are expected to be open for lunch. Dakota’s location in the Roosevelt Hotel works in the restaurant’s favor; lunch guests come not only from within the hotel, they’re also tourists, workers from Capitol Records nearby and even Universal Studios, says food and beverage manager Albert Charbonneau.

And while you can usually get a reservation the same day, or even walk in, “it gets really busy at times,” he says. Like when?

“Whenever there’s a celebrity that’s going to be presented a star on Hollywood Boulevard,” says Charbonneau, “they usually come in for lunch.”

-- Leslee Komaiko

Small bites

* Bill Bracken, who was the face of the Peninsula Hotel’s Belvedere restaurant for more than 10 years, has left that property. He is now executive chef at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach, home to Pavilion restaurant.

The move represents something of a homecoming for Bracken. He worked at the hotel in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when it was known as Four Seasons Newport Beach.

Pavilion, 690 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach; (949) 760-4920.

* Dolce Forno, the bakery that chef-restaurateur Celestino Drago opened a couple of years ago to bake breads and sweets for his restaurants (Drago, Enoteca Drago, Il Pastaio), is now open to the public. In addition to breads and traditional Italian pastries such as cannoli and torta della nonna (most of which will be available by special order), the bakery will sell fresh and frozen pasta, including, count ‘em, nine kinds of ravioli.

Dolce Forno, 3828 Willat Ave., Culver City; (310) 280-6004.

* Christian Shaffer, chef-owner of Avenue and Chloe (the latter is closing for good at the end of the year), is taking over L’Auberge restaurant in Ojai. Following renovations underway, the restaurant will reopen in January as Auberge at Ojai.

It will be “market-driven cuisine,” says Shaffer, “similar to what we do now, maybe a little more rustic as a reflection of that area, which is a little wilder, a little rougher.” The day-to-day person at the helm in the kitchen will be Nickos Rovello, formerly of Water Grill and the Patina group.

Auberge at Ojai, 314 El Paseo, Ojai; (805) 646-2288.

* Leaf Cuisine, the popular raw (as well as vegan, kosher and organic) eatery in Culver City, has opened a second location on the ground floor of a Sherman Oaks strip mall. The menus at both spots are identical, featuring dishes such as miso-carrot-ginger soup and “Fortuna Fantasy”: mock tuna in a wrap or salad.

Leaf Cuisine, 14318 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks; (818) 907-8779.