SCOOP: Is Keller Engaged, Morton Growing, and Denton Getting Sexy?

Laura Cunningham, who oversaw the front of the house for chef Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in Yountville and Per Se in Manhattan and who was his live-in girlfriend for a zillion years, received permits from the town of Yountville to demolish the long-closed PJ Steakhouse and Seafood (6725 Washington Street), as reported in the Yountville Sun and carried on www.uncork29.com

Here is an excerpt: “The kitchen and all food-handling areas will be on the west side of the structure, with pizza bar seating surrounding a pizza oven that flows into a large, open dining room. This design is the work of the San Francisco architectural firm Samantha & Hart. The plans call for concrete walls to be softened with vertical gardens of drought-resistant plants native to Italy’s southern region.”

Cunningham plans to build a Sicilian-style restaurant called Vita, in honor of her Sicilian grandmother. It was reported that Thomas Keller’s company would manage the restaurant.

Could it be that the real juice behind Vita is Keller? A few years ago, the duo split up and she left the French Laundry and Per Se. It was the kind of split that had tongues wagging from Yountville to San Francisco. Both parties were unavailable for comment, but our sources tell us that they may be secretly engaged.

But back to business: In the town of Yountville, with a population of 3100, Thomas Keller owns the French Laundry, Bouchon, Bouchon Bakery, Ad Hoc, and a high-end inn (still to be built). Will Vita be his sixth business? One local, commenting on the Keller empire, said, “We’re all getting pretty sick of it.”

What recession? If a couple of the restaurants renovating and expanding in downtown San Francisco are any harbinger of good times ahead, break out the champagne, or at the very least some sparkling cider.

Morton’s the Steak House–San Francisco (400 Post Street, Lower Level) is expanding upward and outward into some of the space vacated by the Disney store. 

According to G.M. Cynthia Maxwell, Morton’s is doubling it’s size, with the original 9,000 square feet downstairs and the new bar and dining room of 9,000 square feet upstairs, on the ground floor. It will seat 160.

It’s clear that Morton’s is going hipper, with, as the G.M. said, “more interesting drinks and more bar bites.” Look for many more wines by the glass and more than 1,000 wines on their bottle list. Instead of being subterranean, the bar will have windows on Post Street, near the corner of Powell. The new bar and restaurant will open at the end of May; the downstairs by mid-July.

The 9,000 square feet downstairs will become private meeting and dining rooms, replete with full A.V. The downstairs rooms will also be used for overflow from the dining room.

A new look and uplift is coming to the 13-year-old Harry Denton’s Starlight Room, located in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel.

“We’re going to start in August and we should be finished in six weeks,” said the always-ebullient Harry Denton. “The hotel management asked me what we should bring to it, and I said, ‘sexy and luxurious,’” Denton explained.

All the fun special nights will continue, including “Wednesday Indulgence” for 25-to-30-year-olds, plus a terrific Drag Brunch on Sundays. Bar bites will still be the bill of fare.

Denton just came back from visiting his mother, 93, in Kimberly, Idaho. He says, “She still swims half an hour a day, five days a week.” Brava!

A new Tres Agave  Mexican Restaurant is opening mid-April, that is, if all goes well, in a lifestyle center in Roseville, near Sacramento. My first question to partner Eric Rubin was, “What the heck is a ‘lifestyle shopping center’?”

It turns out, we all know, one or two or three. This one has a Z Gallerie, Whole Foods, Smith & Hawken, Chico’s, Anthropologie, and more. The restaurant selection will include a Counter Burger, a McCormick & Schmick, and now, Tres Agave.

Having run Tres Agave in SoMa now for several years, Rubin says they are fine-tuning the concept in Roseville. For one thing, this restaurant will have an adjacent retail market where they will sell all the tequilas they serve. Whereas the San Francisco venue has 9,600 square feet, Roseville will have 4,500, meaning that in and outside there will be 150 seats.

In both San Francisco and Roseville there will be two murals: one depicts the process of tequila-making,sponsored by Herraduro tequila. A new mural, sponsored by Partida tequila, pictures The Tequila Trail.

(Photo: The Tequila Trail)

The San Francisco sous chef, Juan Martinez along will with the San Francisco G.M., Pablo Chichoni will move to Roseville to run the eatery.

When you hear the names involved with the partnership in Tres Agave you can understand why they will expand this concept eventually beyond California. There’s Eric Rubin; chef Joseph Manzare; Barry Angus, former president of Cabo Wabo; Dave Stanton, manager of operations; and Carl Hays of the Outback Steakhouse chain. (Outback Steakhouse was the fuel 20 years ago behind Roy’s Restaurants, which now number 36.)

In 2010, the partners will open a Tres Agave in Las Vegas at Tivoli Village at Queensridge.

I was cruising up Geary the other day, actually on my way to Park Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge, when I glanced over at a storefront that used to house the Bangkok Grocery, one of my faves for hard to find ingredients. Overnight, it seemed it had become something called Internos. I had to stop and check it out (3240 Geary Boulevard, 415-751-2661; Web site under construction). Well, it’s just the cutest little wine bar and small-bite place — maybe a first for the Richmond. (Internos, by the way, means between us.)

The movers behind it are industry veteran Adnan Daken and his girlfriend Quinn Longbothum, a schoolteacher. The day I was there, a puppy named Moose had come into their lives.

(Photo: Adnan, Quinn and Moose)

Daken and Longbothum did much of the work on the interior themselves, including Daken building the tables, chairs and a communal table. He also built the wine rack behind the bar.

Their wine list includes 15 by the glass; and their bottles are just $10 over retail. There are five antipasti, three salads and seven bruschetti ranging in price from $4 to $18.

I tried the bruschetta slathered with a good hummus and topped with cucumber slices and avocado ($10) — yum! And it was especially nice with a glass of JL Columbo Viognier (also $10). 

Last week, I went to the hottest restaurant in Marin, Marinitas.  Chef Heidi Krahling of Insalata’s fame is rocking San Anselmo. It’s been open a week and we had an early reservation, but by the time we left, the bar was three deep, every table was taken, and a clutch of diners were waiting by the door. Krahling has brought to Mexican and Latin American food, what she did with Mediterranean-Middle Eastern flavors at Insalatas.

Two of the best bets were the Thursday special, a pork “Tinga” stew in a green sauce over creamy polenta ($13.75); my cod fish with a ground pumpkin seed coating were perched upon mini corn cakes flavored with epazote.

(Photo: Tinga stew)

The whimsical, yet manly interior is by Michael Brennan.

Paradise is coming to Novato — you could have fooled me.

Corte Madera-based Paradise Foods has signed a lease and will open this fall in the Pacheco Plaza shopping center. The center has been going through a major renovation since the anchor tenant, Safeway, moved across Highway 101 to the Hamilton Marketplace.

Paradise Foods specializes in natural, organic and gourmet foods, a busy deli counter with prepared food, an in-house butcher and seafood, as well as a great selection of cheeses. It will be interesting to see if southern Novatans will embrace Paradise and its higher prices.

Ross resident David Gilmour owns the store.

Owner-chef Bob Hurley of Hurley’s Restaurant in Yountville, (6518 Washington Street) touches the part of me that is all green. He will offer, on March 17, a delicious St. Paddy’s Day menu that is actually written in Gaelic and English.

It’s easy to figure out what Corned Beef Agus CabaÍstz is, but who knew that BhaÍlz At Ata Cliath, Portán Cacá could be yummy crab cakes with watercress and citrus segments?

I was early for my dinner in Oakland, so I cruised over to my old neighborhood. I saw that the King’s X Tavern at 4401 Piedmont Avenue and Pleasant Valley Road had become something called the Kona Club. From the outside, you couldn’t see into the interior. I strode in anyway and discovered that King’s X had been transformed into a tiki bar. Wow!

On the back bar there was a semi-working volcano puffing wisps of smoke. Against a central wall there was an electric-powered hula dancer, swiveling her hips. The wall surfaces and windows were covered by bamboo cloth. Best of all, I met the bar maidsand the manager, Pamela. I tried this scrumptious tiki drink called a “Macadamia Nut Chi-Chi” ($6), a blend of vodka and macadamia nut liqueur, fresh cream, coconut cream, and pineapple, made for me by Emily Young I’ll be back.

(Photo: Emily Young and the Macadamia Nut Chi-Chi)

The place to be for Mardi Gras on Fat Tuesday was Ozumo in Oakland. Owner Jeremy Umlaud hired two gorgeous samba dancers and three drummers to dance through the restaurant.

My acquaintance Henri Davis and I gave up talking about business and just tucked into the best miso-marinated black cod, I’ve ever tasted. Davis said “wow” three times. Ozumo is the bomb and just what Oakland needed.

(Photo:  Samba dancers charmed the diners.)

My friend Liz Thigpen-Hunt, who was the coordinator of all things culinary at Macy’s Cellar in San Francisco, came to visit, and we traipsed through the rain at the Marin Farmers Market in San Rafael.

She knew the folks from Bolani and Sauce the Concord-based Afghan company that produces bolanis and a selection of sauces. We bought a spinach bolani, which is super-thin dough encasing cooked spinach. Thigpen-Hunt grabbed a jar of their sweet and sour carrot sauce, which packed a kick of spice. We ate it later on some of the bolani.

I saw my friend Mr. Nash, who gets up at 2 a.m. to drive from his home in Corning to sell his olives and olive oils. On his spread, which he named E-Z Does It Farms, he grows a variety of olives, crushes olives for oil, and cures them. The Cadillac of his oils is his Sevillano, which is light and buttery. I always use it as a condiment to dress fish, salads or pasta

Finally, I saw an old friend from Fisherman’s Wharf, Mike Svedise, who, with his wife, Trudy, sister-in-law Lisa and daughter Anna, sell their seafood and prepared items at several farmers’ markets. They run two boats out of Bodega Bay. Their store is in Santa Rosa at 946 Santa Rosa Avenue (707-280-2285). The year-round markets where you can find them are Santa Rosa (Wednesday and Saturday and San Rafael (Sunday).

Thigpen-Hunt and I got a bunch of oysters, some crab cakes, a piece of hot, smoked salmon, and a couple of fish spreads. We must have slurped down a dozen different varieties of oysters and split one luscious crab cake. I don’t want to say exactly how many oysters we consumed, but I have enough shells to fertilize my entire garden — that is, after I smash them with a hammer.

One of my favorite reads is Andy Griffin of Mariquita Farms. Here is his latest on tomatoes, in The Ladybug Letter which as a Jersey girl are dear to my heart (and stomach).