Cowboy Chic.

TEXAS-STYLE EATERY AIMS TO PUT THE RODEO IN RODEO DRIVE 

Chicken-fried steak on in the heart of Gucci-land? A singing cowboy who gets laid-back Angelenos to sing along with "Streets of Laredo"?

Something strange is happening in Beverly Hills, where a group of Texas entrepreneurs is trying to put the rodeo in Rodeo Drive.

The 14,000-square-foot Reate restaurant opened its doors a few weeks ago in the belly of the Rodeo Collection on Rodeo Drive. The Texas-style restaurant has two bars, several private dining rooms, a boot museum, a gift shop that sells 10-gallon hats and other Western memorabilia, and a media room for screenings and Hollywood deal-making.

And, yes there's that singing cowboy, plus plenty of Western art like Frederic Remington's bronze sculpture, "Coming Through the Rye."

As with any new restaurant, the jury will be out for some time. And for Reate, the challenge is especially formidable given that the Rodeo Collection address has seen more than its share of restaurant failures.

Not that Al Micallef is especially daunted.

"Beverly Hills is the toughest market in the world," acknowledged Micallef, the owner of the CF Ranch in Texas and a partner in Reate along with chef Grady Spears and Mike Evans. "You have a lot of people with unique and discerning food tastes. We know it is a challenge and it's a treacherous, but we believe in high-quality food and good service. If we give people that, they will come."

Facing an uphill battle 

"We serve Texas cowboy food," said Spears, a 31-year-old chef and former cowboy who has already helped create two successful Reates in Fort Worth and Alpine, Texas. "It's frontier food, the kind you'd get from the back of a chuck wagon."

Well, as long as the chuck wagon is a Rolls Royce. This is Beverly Hills, after all, so the menu features penne with South Texas quail, masa-crusted Texas trout with roasted corn salsa, and a Texas Porterhouse steak topped with cacciota cheese enchiladas.

Merrill Shindler, co-editor of the Zagat Survey for Los Angeles, said Reate is opening at a time when meat consumption is on the rise -- though he added that the new eatery faces an uphill battle.

"There is a California style leading toward lightness, which is why California-style restaurants have not done well in New York or Chicago, or why New York or Chicago restaurants have not done well in Los Angeles," he said. "We are enjoying our steaks these days, but we want them leaner."

In the partnership, Micallef is the details man. Spears cooks and Evans handles the books.

"I'm just a stupid cook," Spears laughs, adding that Micallef showed him how to run an efficient restaurant that could produce hundreds of meals a day without a hitch.

Spears, who once worked for a Fort Worth cattle brokerage, became a busboy at a local restaurant to earn some extra cash. He developed a knack for the business, moving up to waiter. The owner of the Gage Hotel in Marathon, Texas asked him to ran his restaurant, and when the cook quit, the cowboy became a chef. He, Micallef and Evans opened the first Reate in Alpine in West Texas, 400 miles west of Fort Worth.

"I wanted a place to eat and there was nothing around," said Micallef.

The next stop was Fort Worth and now Beverly Hills. Micallef already is hunting for a location in New York, possibly in the 42nd Street area, and London comes next.

Troubles at Rodeo Collection

Micallef, whose business interests include ventures in cattle, oil, land investments, publishing and aircraft leasing, has put considerable care into the restaurant's design. To soften the sound, he carpeted the entire place, added leather panels and installed a special ceiling. He even brought in some of his own art, like his Remington sculptures. Of his $6 million investment, he said $4.2 million went into the decor.

Still, there's the location problem.

Troubles at the Rodeo Collection began almost from the day it opened in the early 1980s. It was designed by French architect Olivier Vidal, who is a proponent of "multilevel vertical retailing." The problem is that shops on upper and lower levels, especially restaurants like Pastel that once occupied the Reate space, are hidden from the street.

One Rodeo Drive merchant suggested that the entire structure should be razed in an effort to help new additions like Reate. "They should rebuild it and not lease any more space," the merchant said. "So many people have gone out of business there. It is unconscionable."

Micallef said he knew about the location's troubles up front, but wanted a site on Rodeo Drive that also had parking.

"They are a great company," said Ron Michaels, president of the Rodeo Drive Committee and the manager of the Louis Vuitton boutique. "They had big results in Fort Worth and Alpine."

To make up for the out-of-the-way location, Micallef has put significant effort and money into marketing. He put up a bright-yellow canopy to call attention to the restaurant, whose name comes from the ranch in Edna Ferber's novel "Giant," also a hit film starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean.