Opening soon, they promise

What’s a week or two more to get things just right for a restaurant opening? A little delay is par for the course. But lately, a number of high-profile Los Angeles area restaurants-to-be seem to be stuck in some kind of quicksand.

Since last year, the food world has been buzzing about the imminent openings of ex-Water Grill chef Michael Cimarusti’s new restaurant, a new Thomas Schoos-designed spot on the Westside, a Dodd Mitchell-designed steakhouse in Beverly Hills and several more. We’ve waited ... and waited.

Cimarusti’s new restaurant, Providence, is to go in the former Patina space on Melrose. To Cimarusti’s surprise, it took almost a year to work out the lease deal with Joachim Splichal, chef-founder of the Patina Group and owner of the building.

“I left Water Grill in July ‘04,” says Cimarusti, who’s working on Providence with general manager Donato Poto (formerly of Bastide), “and I was convinced that we’d be open around the holidays of ’04.”

He had the lease, and the money-raising phase went quickly, but construction was a different story. “I always had a target date that would keep getting pushed back and pushed back. I learned to stop talking about that. But now we’re underway, I feel that we’ll be open in June.”

In Santa Monica, the Thomas Schoos-designed Wilshire Restaurant is now expected to open in early summer, at least eight months later than chef-partner Christopher Blobaum expected. It seems the building, which had housed Knoll’s Black Forest for 23 years, needed extensive infrastructure work -- new plumbing, disability access, ventilation, etc. Blobaum, formerly executive chef at Surf & Sand Resort in Laguna Beach, says he has new respect for chefs who have their own restaurants. “You have no idea until you do it yourself. It’s a lot of work.”

Still, experience is no guarantee against delay. The Wolfgang Puck steakhouse that will go into the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel was scheduled to open this fall, but the timeline changed when acclaimed architect Richard Meier was brought on, says Tom Kaplan, general managing partner of fine dining for Wolfgang Puck. “No one wants to rush the process,” he says. The opening has been moved to early 2006.

Not far away, on La Cienega, the new Gonpachi restaurant was delayed by the relentless rainy season, says Nile Park, chief operating officer of Global Dining of California (which, coincidentally, owns Monsoon as well as La Boheme). The company bought the former Ed Debevic’s site more than two years ago and let it lie fallow for about a year. When construction began last fall, bringing in special materials from Japan proved to be a challenge -- and so did the rains.

“We didn’t have the roof up yet or the walls. Every time it rained we had to stop and pump out the water and let it dry.” Park expects the restaurant, built as a semi-circle around a Zen garden, to open in September or October, “depending on what happens with the weather and inspections with the city.”

Down the road, the Dodd Mitchell-designed steakhouse called Lodge is six to seven months behind schedule, according to Lonnie Moore, one of the owners of the Dolce Group (Geisha House), because of floor plan changes requested by the city of Beverly Hills. The Lodge is going into the rebuilt shell of what was the Korean restaurant Temple on La Cienega.

Sunset Beach owner James Castro and his director of operations Steve Marlton (Pearl) just received necessary permits last week from the city of West Hollywood after an eight-month delay thanks to the bridges burned with city officials and law enforcement agencies by the previous tenants (Dublin’s) of the 10,000-square-foot space.

They’re finally beginning renovations with a design by Steve Trowbridge and Timmy Rheault of Retroactive and hope to open in late September.

Cimarusti, who has dreamed of opening his own restaurant since he began in the business, takes the philosophical view. “It took 18 years to get to this point,” he says. “Why fret over this six months?”

Small bites

* Although bar and dining room spaces near the porte-cochere of the Regent Beverly Wilshire are closed for the above-mentioned remodeling, a “global cuisines” restaurant and bar called the Blvd has opened on the Wilshire Boulevard side of the hotel’s ground floor.

The Blvd, Regent Beverly Wilshire, 9500 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 275-5200.

* Opus Bar & Grill has opened in the Atlas space adjacent to the Wiltern LG. The menu was developed by co-consulting chefs Sara Levine, formerly of Zax and Mark Dao, formerly of Patina, and features California cuisine and steakhouse elements. Sommelier is Noel Baum and yes, the wine list includes six vintages of Opus wine.

Opus Bar and Grill, 3760 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 738-1600.