Don Survivor

It never occurred to us here at the Pitch to add a "Best Survivor" category to our annual "Best Of" issue. But if I were permitted to give out such an award now, my choice would be veteran restaurateur José "Don Pepé" Fernandez.

Why? Well, for one thing, the Madrid-born chef has opened and closed five restaurants in the past two decades. That's four more than most local restaurateurs could have done as stylishly and tastefully as Don Pepé did on a limited budget. And then there's the dramatic arc of his personal life, which is as interesting and colorful as anything you'll see on Guiding Light (or its Spanish-language counterpart, Univision's La Madrastra). When I reviewed his last restaurant, the short-lived Don Pepé's Spanish Cuisine ("Don of a New Day," July 8, 2004), I briefly incurred his wrath by dredging up a scandal from his past that he prefers not to discuss. I don't blame him, of course — I have a couple of not-so-little scandals in my own past that make me cringe ... so don't ask.

But Don Pepé's story, which includes a stint as private chef to Aristotle Onassis, has had so many ups and downs that it has only burnished his image as a local celebrity — and a survivor. Everyone loves a comeback story, and Don Pepé has had more comebacks than John Travolta, Cher and Neil Diamond combined. At age 59, when plenty of his culinary contemporaries must at least have retirement on their minds, Don Pepé has opened his sixth restaurant, Café Sevilla. And I think it's his very best.

It's certainly the most glamorous space that has ever been associated with Don Pepé, with two floors of dining, a lovely private room for small parties, a strikingly attractive bar, and built-in cabinets holding 2,500 bottles of wine. "And the finest kitchen I've ever had in my life," Don Pepé boasted about the large, stainless-steel cooking area on the north side of the building.

The building has been so lavishly outfitted that it bears no resemblance — inside or out — to its previous tenant, the lowbrow California Taqueria. There are now sleek hardwood floors, soaring ceilings and a wall of tall windows that look out on, well, the bottom of the Interstate 35 overpass. The palatial new restaurant sits almost exactly at the halfway point between Don Pepé's fourth restaurant, El Patio (located a few blocks south on Southwest Boulevard) and his fifth, Don Pepé's Spanish Cuisine.

At the risk of getting more complicated here, the fifth restaurant was also the site of Don Pepé's third restaurant, Café Barcelona. Are you still with me? I don't know why each of them closed, but most independent restaurants are financial gambles, particularly if they're undercapitalized from the start. It's a tough business.

The one consistent note in all of Don Pepé's restaurants has been the menu. His culinary reputation rests on a collection of classic Spanish dishes that have been in his repertoire for decades. He hasn't changed his offerings much over the years, probably because the customers who loyally follow him from one location to another don't want him to stray from the stuff he does best: hot and cold tapas, grilled beef heaped with rich ingredients such as seafood and cream sauces, paella.

On the afternoon I had lunch at the three-month-old Café Sevilla, I brought Lou Jane, who has known Don Pepé for nearly three decades. "He's the last of a certain breed of restaurateurs who are very hands-on in both the kitchen and the front of the house," she told me. "People love it that he still comes out and talks to customers."

I suspect that Don Pepé's vivacious personality is a bigger attraction for some diners than his food; because I've eaten all of his signature dishes at least half a dozen times, I assume that most of his regulars have, too. The names of those dishes are different on Café Sevilla's menu — there's no Shrimp Don Pepé or Veal Don Juan — but the basic ingredients are the same: basil, pimentos, garlic, chorizo, artichokes, white wine, olive oil, cream.

One of his most popular appetizers — supple grilled scallops in a saffron cream sauce — has been renamed vieras a la Plancha. And I was thrilled when another hot dish that I loved from Don Pepé's Spanish Cuisine, gambas al ajillo (shrimp in garlic, olive oil and parsley), showed up at the table. (I'd have sworn that it wasn't actually listed on Café Sevilla's menu.) It's slightly similar to a garlicky shrimp "small plate" served across the street at that other famous tapas venue. From our table, we could gaze right across Southwest Boulevard and through the plate-glass windows of La Bodega, where little dishes (such as a layered potato torte called a "tortilla Espanola" and sautéed calamari in olive oil, garlic and lemon) were being served. We were eating the very same things.

La Bodega offers a wider selection of hot and cold tapas than Café Sevilla, but the options are very similar. Is this stretch of Southwest Boulevard big enough for two restaurants serving tapas and paella? The biggest difference between the two is style: La Bodega is laid-back and unpretentious, whereas Café Sevilla is grander and more formal.