Little Auberge on Melrose

Every chef dreams of having a fairy godmother, someone who can wave a magic wand and magically supply everything needed to make a dream restaurant come true.

Alain Giraud got one.

His Bastide, one of the most talked about restaurants in Southern California, should open early next month, barring yet another a last-minute delay. But before all you chefs start turning back flips of envy over Giraud's good fortune, there is a lot more to this story than one person simply wishing and finding someone to make it so.

First of all, Giraud's little restaurant has taken almost three years to open--more than a year and a half longer than planned. "If someone told me two years ago that I would still be waiting to open right now, I never would have believed them," says Giraud.

But then, the restaurant he is getting bears little resemblance to anything he'd dreamed about. Back then, Giraud had little more than a name, Bastide, the word for a farmhouse in the south of France where he was raised. It would be a restaurant of simple, rustic comfort, a place where crowds of happy people could eat the kind of food he grew up with.

Then Giraud met his fairy godmother, albeit one who stands 6 feet 4 and swears like a Marine Corps drill instructor.

"I expected to have a lot of investors to please," Giraud says. "I ended up with just one."

But what a one. Joe Pytka is a director of television commercials, legendary in that world both for his abilities and his uncompromising personal style. More to the point, he is wealthy enough to take Giraud's rough ideas and turn them into reality--at least, a version of it.

Today Giraud's humble dream is a gorgeous $3.5 million high-fashion jewel box seating no more than 80 diners (and in the wrong weather, with the patios closed, less than half that). It was decorated by Andree Putman, one of the most respected designers in France. The food will be refined, the bright easy-to-love flavors of Provencal cuisine raised to an artistic plane. Prices will be high as well, $80 per person for dinner, though lunch will be a more reasonable $30 to $35.

"My vision of the restaurant has changed a lot, for sure," he says. "I've had to adjust it to fit with [Pytka's] vision. That's been a little hard, not to change the spirit but to take it into another dimension. I really have had to extend myself to make this work."

Opposites Attract