From Nuevo Latino to Old-School Cuban

More Mojitos: Xiomara Ardolina, owner of Xiomara Restaurant, wants to open another. Instead of replicating the Nuevo Latino menu she serves in her Pasadena place, though, she’ll concentrate on traditional Cuban food. The site is an old antique store at 6101 Melrose Ave., L.A. The conditional-use permit needs to be changed, and the kitchen and bar have to be built from scratch, but that doesn’t bother Ardolina.

“Everything will be the way that I like it to be,� she says. The Wirt Design Group of Pasadena will help her create the look, which you might call “Art Deco meets old Cuban plantation� style. She’s hoping to have chairs made from wood and cowhide (with the fur still attached). Black-and-white photographs of Cuba back in the old days will decorate the walls. Ardolina is naming her new restaurant Cienfuego, after the city where her mother was born. Loosely translated, the name means “a hundred fires�--Cienfuego is a sugar-refining town where the sugar cane fields were burned between plantings (yes, the place will serve mojitos, the cocktails made with sugar cane juice). The food will be upscale, authentic Cuban: Cuban steak, Creole shrimp, whole deep-fried red snapper, arroz con pollo, paella, yuca, beans, rice, fried plantains. Entrees will stay under $15. Cienfuego should be open in August or September.

Drake Rhymes With Steak: Will Karges, the man responsible for El Dorado in Brentwood, Blueberry in Santa Monica and the Johnnie’s Pizzeria chain, has taken a lease on a historic building at the corner of Windward and Pacific avenues in Venice. It was built at the turn of the last century as a Waldorf Hotel, became the St. Mark’s Hotel, and most recently it was St. Mark’s Jazz Club.

Karges will restore the facade and build an exhibition kitchen; the high walls will remain exposed brick with a polished concrete floor; and Karges will add touches of mahogany and white leather booths. A staircase will lead to a raw bar on a mezzanine. He intends Drake’s of Venice at St. Mark’s, as he’s calling it, to be a steakhouse and seafood restaurant on par with the Palm and Arnie Morton’s, but with a little funk thrown in. We’re in Venice here, after all.

Karges has had his eye on the bohemian city for a while. He says he prefers it to Santa Monica: “It’s got that different culture; it’s so much more interesting.� Since he’s so fascinated with what Abbot Kinney wrought, Karges will pay homage to the early days of Venice through old photographs and commissioned paintings. Entrees and sides will be priced separately. Entrees will run you from around $12 for linguine with clams to $30 for the 32-ounce Porterhouse. Look for Drake’s to open sometime in August.

Menu Action: Pascal Olhats is a Frenchman with a French restaurant, Pascal in Newport Beach. Luckily he lives in America and buys his meat here. Because of the problems in Europe with beef, Olhats has created a menu that is more French than you can get in France. On the menu: sauteed sweetbreads with wild mushrooms, petit pot au feu of oxtail, sauteed co^te de boeuf with bone marrow and a cheese plate. A minimum of two people per table must order this menu; it’s $58 per person. Pascal, 1000 N. Bristol St., Newport Beach; (949) 752-0107. . . . Jean Francois Meteigner is watching what he eats, so he’s giving lunchtime diners at La Cachette a calorie break as well. He now offers a sante (health) lunch menu with no fat, no oil, no starch and no sugar. Dishes may look like this: roasted beet salad, smoked salmon and whitefish, hamachi fish salad, vegetable terrine, Nicoise salad, raspberries with mint and pear with fresh sage. The menu, which changes daily, includes three courses and costs around $28. La Cachette, 10506 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City; (310) 470-4992. . . . Get tapas on Tuesdays in the Lobby Lounge of hotel Casa Del Mar. Dishes, at $8 each, include anchovy fritters, balsamic-vinegar-glazed sardines, terrine of serrano ham and spinach, rock shrimp and potato frittata, braised baby octopus and chorizo quesadilla. Served from 6 to 11 p.m. Tuesdays. The Lobby Lounge, Casa Del Mar, 1910 Ocean Way, Santa Monica; (310) 581-5533.

Champagne Dinner: Josiah Citrin has invited French winemaker Dominique Demarville to pour Champagne Mumm and Courvoisier Cognac at a dinner Tuesday at 7 p.m. at his restaurant. The dessert for this four-course meal plus hors d’oeuvres will be prepared by new pastry chef T’ai Chopping. She’s making a chocolate souffle with banana compote. Other dishes include a crispy rock shrimp cake with caviar and a guinea hen with polenta and mushroom confit. The price is $125.

* Melisse, 1104 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica; (310) 395-0881.

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Angela Pettera can be reached at (213) 237-3153 or at [email protected].