Opening Soon . . .

“Why the Valley? They picked us,” explains restaurateur Bob Morris. He’s talking about the 7,000-square-foot restaurant/gastronomie he and Sylvio DeMori are opening in Courtyard Shops, the new complex on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. “We’ll have a 200-seat Italian restaurant with a patio, and we’ll offer wonderful prepared food to go-- risotto, chicken al mattone, fruits and those sort of things. It will be a little like Balducci’s but without the groceries.” Morris and DeMori, who have just returned from an eight-country inspirational tour, are importing designer Sam Lopata from New York. They hope to have the restaurant open by next January.

Meanwhile Morris is also planning to import a stretch of beach to land-locked Universal City. He’ll open a Gladstone’s 4 Fish in the 200,000-square-foot MCA Citywalk shopping and entertainment complex. “Where else can you drop the kids off at the movies and go eat shrimp cocktail, sausages, or sushi on a sandy beach 20 miles inland, while you’re waiting for them?”

MEXICAN ON MAIN: Gerri Gilliland, Santa Monica’s best-known Irish chef, is giving up soda bread and turning to tacos. “My husband and I bought the Pelican restaurant on Main Street,” she says. They plan a quick-change operation: “We’ll close for a six-day transition period and reopen July 1 as Lula’s, a Mexican Cantina. We aren’t planning any construction--just installing a tented patio, bringing in some art and doing a few test dinners. We’ve put all our money into this place, we’re broke and just want to get it open.” Gilliland, who says she hasn’t manned the stoves at Gilliland’s Cafe for some time, studied cooking in Mexico with Lula Betran. “I’ll be cooking simple regional dishes such as tamales steamed in banana leaves, corn pudding, black beans and handmade tortillas, all for under $9.”

MORE ON MAIN: “We outgrew the old Rockenwagner, we just couldn’t do anymore than we did. It got to be too much--no storage, no refrigeration space. Opening up the new Rockenwagner was a natural way to get bigger and get the kitchen we’ve always wanted.” Hans Rockenwagner will close the doors of his Venice restaurant July 21. He plans to reopen a few weeks later on Santa Monica’s Main Street in a new, larger location designed by David Kellen. Although the new restaurant will seat only 25 more people than the current one, there will be an expanded kitchen, a small deli and a bakery. “I’m planning on having a baker come from Germany to make those wonderful whole-grain German breads.” Will there be a new name? “We were thinking of calling the new place Rock Harder, but then decided, no this isn’t a sequel to a movie, so we’ll stick with Rockenwagner.”

POSITIVELY SEVENTH STREET BLUES: Four years of Metro Rail construction took its toll on chef/owner Laurent Quenioux’s upscale Seventh Street Bistro. At one point business got so bad he was forced to sell his Laurel Canyon home to keep the restaurant going. Now the street barricades and plywood corridors are down, foot traffic along downtown 7th Street is back, and Quenioux says business is getting better.

Hoping to attract a larger audience, Quenioux has redecorated and made a number of changes. His new eclectic approach to dining includes a bistro offering gourmet snacks, sandwiches and pastas in a casual bar atmosphere; prices range from $3 to $7. In the main dining room there is the more traditional menu for which the restaurant is known, with prices ranging from $11 to $15. “But I’ve also started making my own sausages, and we are offering things like oxtails and pig’s feet.” The back room, Quenioux says, is for the ultimate executive crowd, those who do business over lunch and have the time to spend a couple of hours. “We are making it sort of like a private club, with Rosenthal china and good glassware.”

In the evening the prix fixe dinners, which change daily, cost $40 to $95. For the pre-theater crowd, there’s even a $19.50 dinner offered from 5 to 6:30 p.m. “The extravagant mid-’80s are over,” says Quenioux, “I’m offering quality, taste and atmosphere for the best price I can.”

ON THE TABLE: To coincide with L.A.’s upcoming Garlic Festival (July 13 and 14), Ken Frank of West Hollywood’s La Toque is preparing his annual all-garlic four-course prix fixe menu ($38) during the month of July. The nightly changing menu will include two appetizers, a pasta course and a choice of meat or fish--all redolent of garlic. The only thing that lacks garlic is dessert. “I’ve never had a dessert with garlic in it that I’d eat more than once,” says Frank . . . For those who like their pasta served on platters rather than plates, Trattoria Angeli in West Los Angeles is now serving family-style dinners on Sunday and Monday night. This is in addition to the regular menu.