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NEW YORK - Six months after the curtain went up on the lavish revival of the legendary Russian Tea Room here, owner Warner LeRoy announced a dramatic casting change and is preparing to make additional modifications to his multimillion-dollar fine-dining extravaganza.
Following the highly publicized firing of executive chef Fabrice Canelle on April 28, LeRoy named as his replacement Renaud LeRasle, the restaurant's chef de cuisine of one month.
Meanwhile, LeRoy and LeRasle have begun work on several new menus, which he said would add a number of lighter items and usher in some lower price points.
The 500-plus-seat Tea Room, which reopened to much media fanfare last October, more recently has been the target of several unflattering articles in the local press following the announcement of Canelle's departure and subsequent replacement.
On May 3 the New York Post declared that "staffers are defecting as eatery's chief chef is purged." The story also reported that "...the whole place is said to be losing money-bleeding slowly and inexorably like a Romanov Czarevich."
LeRoy, however, responded that the "article is completely untrue." The 72-year-old restaurant is not losing money, he insisted, nor has there been a mass exodus. On the other hand, LeRasle most definitely has donned the restaurant's top toque, he said.
While Canelle was not available for comment, Glenn W Dopf, the chef's attorney, detailed in a statement, the events leading up to his dismissal as executive chef. Dopf said that Alan Garmise, president of Warner LeRoy Adventures, had suggested at two separate meetings on April 24 and April 26 that Canelle's contract...