NEW ESTABLISHMENTS ON THE WESTERN HORIZON

It’s “Westward, ho!” in the Los Angeles restaurant business these days, with at least three of our top local food-mongers planning new establishments on the far side of the San Diego Freeway.

The place nearest to opening is a Westside branch of S. T. Cheung’s wonderful if unlikely vegetarian restaurant, the Fragrant Vegetable, now in Monterey Park--to sprout in September on Wilshire Boulevard between Bundy and Barrington in West Los Angeles.

Then will come an as-yet-unnamed eatery to be launched in late November in Santa Monica by two of the partners in West Hollywood’s Trumps--Doug Delfeld and Jerry Singer--in league with real estate investor Gary Fowler. The site is the A la Playa building at Ocean and Colorado--a complex that also houses Ivy at the Shore and a branch of Caffe Roma.

The look of the place will be contemporary Mediterranean (the designer is Ruben Ojeda), and the mode will be “casually upscale, with a moderately priced menu.” Specifics? Lots of grilled meats and chicken, lots of seafood, an assortment of northern Spanish and southern Italian dishes, homemade Italian-style bread, whole roasted leg of lamb, raclette and, for breakfast (Saturdays and Sundays only), things like macadamia-nut-and-coconut pancakes and homemade biscuits and sausage. Cold appetizers and salads will be displayed on the bar at all hours, and the restaurant will be open seven days a week.

Mauro Vincente, larger-than-life patrone of Rex Il Ristorante downtown, is bringing a modified version of his long-promised French superstar restaurant to the same block of Ocean Avenue, to the building occupied until recently by Sterling’s steak house. As longtime readers of this column with elephantine capacities for rememberance might recall, about 2 1/2 years ago Vincente announced an ambitious (and, I suggested at the time, probably unworkable) plan to build an L.A. restaurant around the talents of four hot young chefs from France: Michel Rostang of the superlative Paris restaurant of the same name, Yannick Jacquot of Paris’ Le Toit de Passy, Jean-Paul Lacombe of Leon de Lyon in Lyon and Michel Chabran of Chabran in Pont-de-l’Isere in the Rhone Valley.

The idea was that one of these four would be in the kitchen at all times, in 15-day periods of rotation. The restaurant, to be built at 755 N. La Cienega Blvd., was to have been called Apres-Moi. Well, apres a good many mois , as it turns out, Vincente has decided that what La Cienega needs on that spot is a good new Italian restaurant--an authentic southern Italian one, if he can nail down the right chefs and the sources of supply for appropriate fresh ingredients. His quadripartite French plan, at the same time, has been shifted west--with the establishment to bow, he hopes (rather optimistically, I suspect), in February or March, in a more informal, bistro-like style than he had originally envisioned, and under a name that will not be Apres-Moi but which is not yet otherwise decided.

Though he plans to stay on the in-town side of the San Diego Freeway, a fourth restaurateur with an establishment in the Los Angeles east--Laurent Quenioux of downtown’s Seventh Street Bistro--reports that he is considering a westward move as well: He is seriously looking for a new location in Beverly Hills for a place he will probably call LQ’s. He, Cheung, Delfeld and company, and Vicente all stress that their new projects are in addition to their existing restaurants, and will enhance them rather than replace them.

NORTH-AND-EASTWARD, HO!: Not all the migratory restaurant action in town is in a westerly direction, it must be said. Kurt Niklaus has just announced that he is opening a branch of his Beverly Hills-based Bistro Garden over the hill (you should pardon the expression) in the new complex called the Center, on the site of the old Tail o’ the Cock in North Hollywood. The new place will be called the Bistro Garden at Coldwater, and will be a winter-garden sort of place rather than a true open garden in the Beverly Hills style (the San Fernando Valley not necessarily being a place where you’d want to sit outside unprotected in the warmer months). Niklaus promises that the 8,000-square-foot establishment will be “warm and friendly” in atmosphere, with a slightly modified (and perhaps modernized) edition of the original Bistro Garden menu.

And Tony Bill reports that he and his partners at 72 Market St. in Venice have been asked to bring a restaurant into a new office complex in Beverly Hills and are “looking at the project now to see if it makes any sense.” He has also been approached about opening a 72-like place in San Francisco, he says. “That’s real interesting,” he says with a twinkle in his voice. “The chance to bring L.A. to the Bay Area. . . .”

SNACKS: It’s love, Chinese-style tonight at Abacus Chinese Seafood Restaurant in Brentwood, where a special “Chinese Valentine’s Day” menu, at $20 per person, will be presented in celebration of the feast of Lovers Across the Milky Way. . . . Rondo in Hollywood closes Monday until Sept. 10 for vacation.

SIDE ORDERS: The Foodsource Hot Line has launched a one page (legal sized, double-sided) “tip sheet” carrying news and brief commentary about the local restaurant scene, and is soliciting contributions to same from the general public. Send a No. 10 self-addressed, stamped envelope and a $1 bill to Foodsource at 200 S. Martel Ave., Los Angeles 90036 for a sample copy--or call (213) 930-2111 for more information. . . . Downtown Soul Food is scheduled to open shortly on S. Main Street, downtown. . . . Il Giardino in Beverly Hills has introduced a new lunch menu, including some items at slightly lower prices than is usual for the establishment. . . . And the Food Yellow Pages, described as “L.A.’s first comprehensive yellow-page source directory of the food, wine and restaurant industry” has expanded its format and extended its advertising deadline to Oct. 15. Contact Susan Fine at (213) 655-7569 or Linda Zimmerman at (213) 653-7185 for details.