Sedlar’s Plates: Saintly or Sacrilegious?

It was on one of his frequent visits to Mexico that John Sedlar first tasted tamales de los Muertos , the classic dish served only on the Mexican holy day, Day of the Dead. He was so impressed that he created a version of the tamale when he opened his Santa Monica restaurant, Bikini. To give the tamale the setting he felt it deserved, Sedlar commissioned a plate that depicts the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico.

“On Thanksgiving you serve the turkey on a great big beautiful platter,” Sedlar explains, “so on this religious holiday, you have this beautiful tamale. I wanted a plate to represent the holiday and the religion.”

The plates have been used regularly at the 17-month-old restaurant and in its ads, including one that ran nationally in Movieline magazine. But to some people, serving tamales on a patron saint is offensive.

“The tamale goes on the plate, but it doesn’t cover her face,” responds Sedlar, a Catholic and the son of a Mexican-American mother. “It’s completely done out of respect and homage. Serving one of my proudest culinary creations on a plate graced with the image is meant only to honor her.”

Eric Mason, who saw the ad in Movieline magazine, isn’t convinced. “Using the most loved and revered saints of the Mexican people in this manner is reprehensible,” Mason wrote to Sedlar, sending copies of his letter to the Mexican Consulate and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

When the Rev. Gregory Coiro, who runs the archdiocese’s public affairs office, received a copy of Mason’s letter, he also wrote to Sedlar expressing his concerns. Coiro makes the comparison of using the plates to walking into a restaurant and finding that your napkin is an American flag. “True, it’s a piece of cloth,” he says, “but its a piece of cloth that carries a powerful symbolic value. I was trying to bring it to the attention of the restaurant that this was a misuse of a religious symbol.”

Parishioners of St. Marcellinus in Commerce who saw the ad also complained to Sedlar. “We do not believe that the fact that you placed a tamale on (Our Lady of Guadalupe’s) chest is going to bring you any blessings,” they wrote to Sedlar. Sedlar says he’s received other complaints, including calls from Ohio and a letter comparing him to Salman Rushdie, whose “Satanic Verses” offended Iran’s Muslims. Several women have even threatened to picket the restaurant if he continued to use the plates.

On the other hand, Sedlar received a postcard from a nun in Philadelphia who loved the ad. “Please explain each of the foods and the inspiration for the unique ad,” Sister Ann Edward wrote.

Sedlar, who has no plans to stop using the plates, insists that they are used in honor and reverence. In fact, he’s taking 150 along on a trip to Italy next September for a special dinner he is cooking at a convent in Argenta, 50 kilometers south of Bologna.

“Well, all I can say is that there are people that have taken offense,” says Coiro. “I don’t want to impute bad motives to him. It just seems that somebody had to point out that this had the potential of offending people. I don’t know where he goes from there.”

TO CLOSE OR NOT TO CLOSE?: Staff members at the Columbia Bar & Grill say that a formal announcement was made last week warning that if business didn’t turn around in 90 days, the restaurant would close. The Hollywood restaurant is owned by a limited partnership that includes actor Wayne Rogers.

“They’ve been making a lot of drastic cutbacks,” says one long-time employee, who asked not to be named. “Business has been so bad that they took away the employee meals, they cut everyone’s hours and the kitchen crew has to buy and launder their own whites.”

“We are definitely not closing,” says an outraged Terry Buchanan, manager of the 7-year-old restaurant. “In fact, we are negotiating for another location in Pasadena.”

Even so, two weeks ago the restaurant changed the menu and lowered its prices approximately $2 to $3 per entree. “They stuck pizzas on the menu,” says the staffer, “and we don’t even have a pizza oven.” The pizzas are all named after different movie studios: the Sunset Gower, the Paramount, the Warner Brothers. . . .”

DEFINITELY CLOSED: Gorky’s Cafe & Brewery, the popular downtown bohemian cafeteria that sought protection from its creditors in February under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code. . . . Say goodby also to Tse Yang, the very expensive Beverly Hills restaurant that offered a whole new experience in eating Chinese food.

CHEF MOVES: Andre Guerrero, who started cooking at his family’s Cafe Le Monde in Glendale and went on to cook at Bernard’s at the Biltmore, Alice’s Restaurant in Malibu and, most recently, Brio in Tarzana, is now back in Glendale remodeling the former Shaker Mountain Inn. On May 24, the two-story restaurant becomes Duet. Guerrero’s menu should include seafood and pasta dishes, with European and Asian accents. . . . Denis Depoitre, who has been with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain since 1990 (before that he cooked at Dallas’ Grand Kempinski Hotel and at Paris’ Le Doyen Restaurant and Prunier Restaurant), is now executive chef at the Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel in Pasadena.