Robert Steinberg, 1947-2008

Robert Steinberg, a physician, and John Scharffenberger, a former sparkling-wine maker, started making chocolate in Steinberg's kitchen with some cocoa beans, a coffee grinder, mortar and pestle, an electric mixer and a hair dryer, according to Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker lore. The rest is chocolate history.

Steinberg was diagnosed with a form of lymphoma in May 1989, sold his medical practice and in 1996  partnered with Scharffenberger to form the Berkeley-based chocolate company. He passed away Sept. 17 in San Francisco. Read a tribute from David Lebovitz here.   

Photo of Robert Steinberg courtesy of Scharffen Berger

On getting banned from the Berkeley Bowl

From L.A. Now, John Glionna says he gets ousted from the Berkeley Bowl after his story about the madcap shopping at Berkeley's most popular grocery store. Glionna says, "Most people got a kick out of the fact that offenders who commit crimes such as felony food noshing without paying are banned from the Bowl for good." The Bowl's owner was not among those people. 

Wines for camping

Two weeks ago my wife and I were wandering the Utah wilderness, car-camping at a pretty, rustic campground in Capitol Reef National Park. For desert rats like us these were wonderful days, hiking up creek beds and into box canyons of Navajo Sandstone, looking for Indian petroglyphs, poking around for troves of jasper and gypsum and petrified wood.

And then there was the food situation.

Peer into the cooler around, say, the third day of 95-degree heat, and it’s easy to be discouraged. The bag of peaches you so carefully selected at the U-Pick look a little like assault victims for all of their bruises and slights; that wedge of waterlogged English cheddar has been slowly liquefying (really, have you ever known a Zip-Loc that does not unzip in a cooler? either that or they’re water-soluble) and then there’s the salami that has been silently outgassing in its own special sealed plastic sheath.

New pastry chefs at Ammo and BLT Steak

At the Wednesday Santa Monica farmers market, Ammo chef Julia Wolfson was loading up on 20 pounds of Lompoc-grown rhubarb -- with her new pastry chef, Agustin Rodriguez (left). The self-taught Rodriguez, a Puerto Rico native and longtime New Yorker, spent the last two years at Applewood in Brooklyn. Which is where he met Wolfson, who previously cooked at the restaurant. Rodriguez's desserts will debut next week, with the restaurant's new fall menu.

BLT Steak also has a new pastry chef. Jessica Goryl takes over the dessert kitchen at Laurent Tourundel's Sunset Boulevard restaurant from Danielle Keene, who recently left for the Little Door. A Virginia native, Goryl worked at Sibling Rivalry in Boston, then moved to the West Coast, where she was executive pastry chef for the Bayside and Bistango restaurants in Orange County. Before coming to BLT, Goryl was pastry chef at Cafe del Rey in Marina del Rey.

Ammo, 1155 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 871-2666. BLT Steak, 8720 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 360-1950.

-- Amy Scattergood

Photo of Agustin Rodriguez by Amy Scattergood

The Gwyneth Paltrow backlash over Goop.com

Web Scout covers the backlash over Goop.com (where Gwyneth Paltrow seems to be positioning herself as a sort of Martha Stewart):

Gwyneth Paltrow's new lifestyle/advice website, Goop.com, went up yesterday in preview form, but the backlash is already well underway. The site will be a collection of recommendations and musings from Gwyneth herself about things that make her life special.... but the road ahead looks bumpy for this little operation! It's not just that no one wants to take life direction from the girl who has it all -- though that's a powerful thread in the criticism of the site. There are also some more basic technical problems on display, starting with the layout of the two-page site. It's not clear why she bothered to put it up with so little content on it. It feels like something that won an award for Web design in 1998.

When you click on the fork and knife icon, you get an essay about how she loves "to travel, to cook, to eat, to take care of my body and mind, to work hard...," etc.

Photo by Luca Bruno/Associated Press

Trader Vic's, Katsuya, Rock 'n Fish, Wolfgang Puck and more at L.A. Live

L.A. Live, the 4-million-square-foot, $2.5- billion "sports, entertainment and residential district" next to Staples Center is gearing up for phase two of its rolling openings. This one, on Dec. 3, involves 11 of the 15 restaurants and clubs that make up a large portion of L.A. Live real estate.

Opening in late November and early December will be: ESPN Zone restaurant and sports bar, Fleming's Steakhouse, Yard House, The Farm of Beverly Hills, Rock n' Fish, Lawry's Carvery, New Zealand Natural Ice Cream, Club Nokia, Lucky Strike Lanes and lounge, the Conga Room and Starbucks.

The remaining restaurants -- Katsuya, Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill, Trader Vic's and Rosa Mexicano -- will open after the new year. L.A. Live's managing director Lisa Herzlich says that the group talked to about 200 potential occupants before settling on the final roster. Trader Vic's and Rock n' Fish were the last two venues to sign on and the list was decided upon in large part to keep the development free of competing styles of food. Rosa's Mexicano had written into its lease that no other restaurant in the complex can offer guacamole as a main dish.

A look at José Andrés' Bazaar at the SLS Hotel

The Bazaar in the SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills is set to open in November, so here's a rendering for an early look. The restaurant, overseen by Spanish chef José Andrés, is another Philippe Starck design.

Back in 2005, SBE Entertainment Group's chief executive, Sam Nazarian, signed a deal with Starck to design nine distinct restaurant and lounge concepts over six years. The first Katsuya sushi restaurant opened in Brentwood in 2006. Now we're on the brink of another Starck vision: XIV, the venue for chef Michael Mina, opens next month. For this one, Starck has conjured a European castle. Starck has said that he speaks to the "Smart Tribe" (his example of a member of the Smart Tribe was someone who could recognize a Picasso).   

As far as the Bazaar, to hear Nazarian and Andrés tell it, the concept sounds as if it has been born of one big love fest. Andrés says that he and Nazarian "were meant for each other." And Nazarian says that Andrés and Starck were meant for each other too: "[Andrés] is the perfect match for the design vision of Philippe Starck."

From an article that ran when Nazarian and Starck penned another design deal for the hotels, Starck says: "To make a beautiful baby, the parents must be in love." Or at least have "synergies."

Meanwhile, here's a look at a titillating preliminary Bazaar menu ...

Two Boots Pizzeria invades Echo Park

Two Boots Pizzeria is about to hit serious pay dirt. The popular funkified New York City pizza parlor chain is moving into the space directly next door to the Echo in Echo Park. The economy may be tanking, but the owners of Two Boots can rest assured that a weak dollar will not keep the skinny-jeaned crustache set from late-night pizza binging.

The store itself is still a work in progress. It features peppy colored-glass windows, Barbie Dream House-pink walls and a very cool L.A.-centric mural depicting winged pigs and guitars soaring above the dark silhouette of the Echo Park and Silver Lake hills.

On the menu you'll find heroes, calzones, salads, po' boys, Stromboli and serious Sicilian-style pizza with fancy toppings. Check back for more info on when it will open.

Also in the works for the two spaces next door to Two Boots, according to the contractor, are an ice cream parlor and a record shop.

Two Boots, 1814 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park.

-- Jessica Gelt

Photos: Two Boots in progress. Credit: Jessica Gelt

A sip of this, a bite of that: Wine pairing deals (galore?)

A glass of vino, or three, with ricotta gnocchi and fried butternut squash ravioli with parsley pesto and roast pork with currants ... totaling less than 40 bucks. For those with shaky (or even not-so-shaky) bank accounts, there are some solid wine pairing deals to be had.   

Campanile's "Friday Night Flights" continue, with wines selected by wine director Jay Perrin, paired with three small plates from chef Mark Peel. Next Friday (Oct. 3), "L'autonno in Italia" includes all the dishes named above with three Italian red wines, and "20,000 Leagues Under the Rosé" comes with moules frites, bouillabaisse and fried skate wings with parsley, lemon and capers, and three rosés. 

Tomorrow night, Bar Pintxo in Santa Monica ...

The new Morton's: Downsized

Recently I got a breathless news release informing me that Arnie Morton’s Beverly Hills reopened Sept. 6 with new decor and an updated menu — also, a new name. Heretofore, it will be known as Morton’s The Steakhouse. No comma.

I had a free evening so I thought I’d see how this member of the old steakhouse generation would stack up against the new generation of steakhouses. Funny thing, the place looked almost exactly the same, maybe a bit brighter. There was, admittedly, a new temperature-controlled wine storage area to the left of the door and comfy red velvet barstools in the bar, now called Bar 12.21 (for the date the first Morton’s opened in Chicago in 1978, if anyone asks). New lighting fixtures mean the light is soft, but radiant: a good thing. But when our waiter handed us the menus, which she calls “cheat sheets,” after her visual presentation of the menu, holding up various cuts of meats, giant onions, broccoli stalks and a glowering Maine lobster, I find that the vaunted changes don’t amount to much.