Michel Richard

It's an early night at Michel Richard, as they will tell you when you phone for a reservation. "We stop at nine," says a lilting French accent so unequivocally that you think you are back in Paris fighting with the maitre d' for a prime-time reservation at Tour D'Argent. "Too bad," you'll feel like saying, but don't. Go before 9 p.m., for heaven's sake. It's worth it.

It's just the season, I guess, but wine events keep coming fast and furious. Tickets are on sale for a biggie in Vegas. That would be the 7th annual Vegas Uncork'd sponsored by the magazine Bon Appétit . They've got some 28 events going on over the four-day event. Nine of them have just been announced today, including Master Series Dinners with Gordon Ramsay ($275) and Nobu Matsuhisa ($275) and a chance to sample dishes for soon-to-open PUB 1842 with Michael Mina ($115)

FOR THE last several weeks, Omri Aflalo has been helming the stoves at Citrus at Social as acting chef de cuisine, and now chef-owner Michel Richard is making it official. Aflalo takes up the post relinquished by former chef de cuisine Remi Lauvand, who departed abruptly last month. Aflalo, 28, cooked at Gary Danko and Aqua in San Francisco and previously had worked closely with Richard at Citronelle in Washington, D.C. He also worked at l'Essentiel in Chambery, France, and at Nero Bianco in Namur, Belgium.

Rémi Lauvand is executive chef of 3-month-old Le Ka in downtown Los Angeles. The native of Périgord, France, worked his way through Michelin -starred restaurants in New York, including Gerard Pangaud, La Grenouille, Le Cirque and Montrachet. He moved to California and eventually spearheaded the reopening of Michel Richard's acclaimed but short-lived Citrus at Social Hollywood. Lauvand has since consulted at Rivera and Cafe Pierre, and now is offering a refreshingly meaty and mostly-French menu at Le Ka: pork short ribs, braised rabbit leg, glazed bone marrow with garlic flan, terrines and rillettes, and onion soup gratinée, with a few wild boar albondigas thrown in. What's coming up next on your menu?

On the night of July 10, an armed robber killed transplanted Frenchman Andre Coffyn while he was closing up his Wilshire District bistro, "Michel Richard." While his murder was no more important, no less important, than any other killing that occurs in Los Angeles, it received considerable publicity and sparked rumors of a "conspiracy" against the French community, prompting the State Department to make an official inquiry on the matter to the Los Angeles Police Department.

By noon on a recent weekday, the next day's hickory-smoked Idaho trout orders are already cooling on metal racks, and the hundred or so salmon fillets cleaned that morning at Michel Cordon Bleu are a good halfway through their requisite five-hour smoke. Michel Blanchet, the 60-year-old owner of the small smoked seafood company, turns his attention to two employees who are hand-packing fillets into ice pack-filled Styrofoam boxes. After a lifetime working with some of the greatest chefs in the business, Blanchet is now supplying some of them with handcrafted smoked salmon, having carved out a signature business that counts clients nationwide because of his insistence on a personal, artistic touch instead of an assembly-line approach.

The wedding ceremony--simple and light-hearted--lasted about seven minutes. Eight hours later the wedding reception was still going strong, showing few signs of abatement. But anyone who knows ebullient Michel Richard, chef-partner at Citrus restaurant on Melrose Avenue, would not expect his wedding to Laurence Retourne to be anything but joyous celebration. Richard's fellow chefs turned out in force to provide a memorable wedding luncheon and reception.

Re: "America Killed Andre," Sept. 24, by Nikki Finke. "America" killed Andre Coffyn?! What nonsense! Must we be subjected to such nattering of yet another tiresome European emigre who came here, made a fortune, achieved a degree of trendy notoriety and--what else?--bad-mouths America? Quelle chutzpah! As an immigrant myself, I deplore Michel Richard's crass ingratitude. Given his own depiction of the privations of his childhood in France, Richard of all people should understand that for all its problems, this country remains a shining beacon for the rest of the world.

Rémi Lauvand is executive chef of 3-month-old Le Ka in downtown Los Angeles. The native of Périgord, France, worked his way through Michelin -starred restaurants in New York, including Gerard Pangaud, La Grenouille, Le Cirque and Montrachet. He moved to California and eventually spearheaded the reopening of Michel Richard's acclaimed but short-lived Citrus at Social Hollywood. Lauvand has since consulted at Rivera and Cafe Pierre, and now is offering a refreshingly meaty and mostly-French menu at Le Ka: pork short ribs, braised rabbit leg, glazed bone marrow with garlic flan, terrines and rillettes, and onion soup gratinée, with a few wild boar albondigas thrown in. What's coming up next on your menu?

It's just the season, I guess, but wine events keep coming fast and furious. Tickets are on sale for a biggie in Vegas. That would be the 7th annual Vegas Uncork'd sponsored by the magazine Bon Appétit . They've got some 28 events going on over the four-day event. Nine of them have just been announced today, including Master Series Dinners with Gordon Ramsay ($275) and Nobu Matsuhisa ($275) and a chance to sample dishes for soon-to-open PUB 1842 with Michael Mina ($115)

Over 500 food and wine vendors packed into downtown's Vibiana on Sunday for the L.A. Epicurian Festival. Food lovers of every background sampled everything from wild boar salami to organic pumpkin seed butter, and sipped wines from around the world, discussing ways to incorporate products into their businesses or their homes. That's the idea behind food industry veterans Kora Kroep's and Bruno Laclotte's "open to the public" L.A. Epicurean Festival. Kroep and Laclotte began their food-and-wine-trade-only shows in Las Vegas six years ago, but for the last two years have opened the show to the public.

Everything's bigger in Las Vegas , including the new Central Michel Richard restaurant that will be whipping up lobster burgers and fried chicken 24 hours a day at Caesars Palace. The celebrity chef's newest addition to his culinary raves Citronelle and Central in Washington, D.C., opens at noon Wednesday. The restaurant will seat 220 inside and 155 more guests at tables outside and at the bar. It occupies the space off the hotel's lobby that once housed the Augustus Cafe. So what exactly is on the menu?

Theirs was a love affair that began in the glow of a candlelit table. It was a white tablecloth and red wine evening. The food was refined, the service impeccable. The private room with the glass door was discreet, but the couple behind it could not go unnoticed. It's been a year and a half since that meal at Equinox, a chic and sleek restaurant a couple of blocks from the White House, in which Barack and Michelle Obama dined on greens with poached apples and pickled watermelon radish, pan-fried Rappahannock oysters, all-natural strip loin steak, crispy bananas and zabaglione gelato.

By noon on a recent weekday, the next day's hickory-smoked Idaho trout orders are already cooling on metal racks, and the hundred or so salmon fillets cleaned that morning at Michel Cordon Bleu are a good halfway through their requisite five-hour smoke. Michel Blanchet, the 60-year-old owner of the small smoked seafood company, turns his attention to two employees who are hand-packing fillets into ice pack-filled Styrofoam boxes. After a lifetime working with some of the greatest chefs in the business, Blanchet is now supplying some of them with handcrafted smoked salmon, having carved out a signature business that counts clients nationwide because of his insistence on a personal, artistic touch instead of an assembly-line approach.

FOR THE last several weeks, Omri Aflalo has been helming the stoves at Citrus at Social as acting chef de cuisine, and now chef-owner Michel Richard is making it official. Aflalo takes up the post relinquished by former chef de cuisine Remi Lauvand, who departed abruptly last month. Aflalo, 28, cooked at Gary Danko and Aqua in San Francisco and previously had worked closely with Richard at Citronelle in Washington, D.C. He also worked at l'Essentiel in Chambery, France, and at Nero Bianco in Namur, Belgium.

CARPACCIO of "surf, turf and earth" is laid out on a square platter -- a fabulous mosaic of raw beef, tuna, salmon, scallop and roasted pepper, each round decorated with a wisp of frisee or a pretty pink grapefruit segment, the whole pulled together with a drizzle of basil and kumquat oils. Each bite is different, making a melody of flavors that dances across the palate. Another dish, listed as "Scallop scramble not 'Eggsactly' " is a play on texture that would intrigue any Chinese chef.

Over 500 food and wine vendors packed into downtown's Vibiana on Sunday for the L.A. Epicurian Festival. Food lovers of every background sampled everything from wild boar salami to organic pumpkin seed butter, and sipped wines from around the world, discussing ways to incorporate products into their businesses or their homes. That's the idea behind food industry veterans Kora Kroep's and Bruno Laclotte's "open to the public" L.A. Epicurean Festival. Kroep and Laclotte began their food-and-wine-trade-only shows in Las Vegas six years ago, but for the last two years have opened the show to the public.

It's the old parlor game: "If you could eat dinner with anyone you wanted, whom would it be?" That may be fun for some, but for those who love to cook, wouldn't a more kitchen-centric twist be even better? Wouldn't you rather fantasize about whom you would like to get to help you fix that meal? Particularly at Thanksgiving, the most food-centered of American holidays, who doesn't dream about having a great cook drop by to lend a hand? Even the greatest chefs are not all created equal.