Next Wave in Restaurants: Sponsored by Google?

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Step aside, Verizon Center! You too, FedEx Field! Celebrity chef José Andrés has a vision for the restaurant business: corporate sponsorship.

The hottest ticket in D.C. is his four-star Minibar: Customers often wait a month for a reservation at one of the restaurant's six seats, then pay $120 apiece (plus wine, tax and tip) for 30 tiny, exquisite courses. Now he's planning to replace his Cafe Atlantico with an expanded 36-seat Minibar -- and is considering selling naming rights to a corporation.

"A place like the Minibar needs so many chefs to perform at the highest level," he told us yesterday. "Many people say I'm nuts. I see it as a possibility."

Andrés and partner Rob Wilder (Jaleo, Oyamel, Zaytinya) bought out Cafe Atlantico's other investors, and acquired most of the Eighth Street NW building it's housed in. Andrés told "Bisnow on Business" newsletter that naming rights is the wave of the future: It's a logical extension of a cultural trend, and great for a corporation looking to work with a high-end restaurant and chef. Of course, not any company will do. He told Bisnow it's got to be something innovative, something cool -- like Google, not Frito-Lay.

The price tag? Andrés wouldn't say, but corporations shell out millions for stadium deals (the Redskins get a reported $7 million a year from FedEx).

Alas, foodies -- the expansion is on the back griddle. The 38-year-old Spanish chef is busy launching a new hotel in Los Angeles with designer Philippe Starck and his "Made in Spain" PBS show in February. Andrés told us he expects to have a sponsor by late 2008 or early 2009.

Hey, Isn't That ...

* Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and a peace-symbol-wearing Graham Nash power-breakfasting at Palette yesterday morning before a Capitol Hill trip to lobby against federal bucks for nuclear power (and maybe resurrect their "No Nukes" concerts of 1979). All three classic-rock icons had oatmeal, Raitt (wearing all black, her flame-red hair down) adding soy milk. Didn't want her raisins so she gave them to Browne.

Where Real Estate Is Still Hot: Stars' Homes Under Siege in Malibu

Malibu -- hotter than ever, no thanks to epic blazes sweeping the coastal California VIP enclave. Here, a list of Hollywood types whose mansions are said to be in the line of fire. Where will they go? Their other homes, we guess.

* Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson

* Courteney Cox and David Arquette

* Olivia Newton-John

* Sting

* James Cameron

* Mark Hamill

* Goldie Hawn

* Sean Penn (who lost a house in the Malibu fire of '93)

* Jane Seymour (who said on "Dancing With the Stars" that husband James Keach had sneaked back home to fight the blaze)

* Linda Ronstadt

* Jeff Bridges

* Bill Murray

* Britney Spears (who recently signed a lease in the 'bu)

* Promises Malibu, the rehab home to a generation of detoxing stars

This Just In

* In a forthcoming memoir, Shirley MacLaine claims that longtime pal Dennis Kucinich had a UFO sighting at her Washington state home -- "a gigantic triangular craft" that "hovered, soundless," before speeding away and leaving the presidential candidate with "a connection in his heart and . . . directions in his mind," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. A woman who answered the phone at his campaign HQ told us she's seen a UFO, too, and it's really no big deal.

* Queen Elizabeth yesterday named CNN's Christiane Amanpour a Commander of the Order of the British Empire -- not lofty enough to get her the title "Dame," but a rare honor for a journalist nonetheless.

* Oprah Winfrey flew to South Africa last weekend for emergency meetings at the girls' school she opened earlier this year, amid an investigation into charges of sexual misconduct by one of the matrons -- Oprah's second trip this month, the Times of London reports.