EPICured

John had his own bouts of depression and anger and fear, and so the psychotherapist scripted an encounter with him.

She asked him to pretend that he had children of his own and asked if he would let his 4-year-old son know how to open a pool gate.

"No," John said tensely, "4-year-olds shouldn't be able to open the gate."
"You're right," the therapist responded. "It wasn't your fault that your little brother drowned. It's your parents' fault because they were dumb enough to let a 4-year-old know how to open a gate."

According to the script, Hall and Stacey had to agree.
"And it kind of tore us up," Hall says, choking back tears. "Because we've always known it was our fault.

"I have dealt with the hardest lessons of life," he says. Then, one at a time, he points to his wife and his daughter sitting in the living room.

"She matters, and she matters," he says.

On a recent afternoon, Hall and Stacey are at lunch at Vincent Guerithault on Camelback. Hall is politely challenging the waiter, who has just told him that today's black-bean salad will feature shrimp instead of mussels, because mussels are out of season.

"Mussels are raised on farms," Hall says. "How can they be out of season?"
"I don't know, sir."
Part of Hall's purpose in coming to this restaurant is to see how its chef, the very well-known Vincent Guerithault, will react to his return to Phoenix.

In fact, since Hall has been back in town, he has been calling every chef and every food writer, with the exception of the Arizona Republic's Penelope Corcoran, whom he despises, to let them know that he's ready to cook--while at the same time trying to glean information on where he stands.

In addition, Hall has been announcing that more than anything he wants to return to La Hacienda at the Scottsdale Princess resort, the same restaurant that started Hall's career in Phoenix nine years ago.

"One does not call up and order a restaurant the way one orders a hamburger," he claims Princess management told him. But, nonetheless, he put his order in, told everyone about it, and they have been negotiating for weeks. And whether he should have just kept his mouth shut about it remains to be seen. But the strategy, he confesses, is vintage Todd Hall.

This time, however, Hall says, he's going to stay put. He swears that the new, calmer, grown-up Todd Hall realizes how many opportunities he's blown by jumping from restaurant to restaurant.

Both Joe Martori, who owns Los Abrigados, and Robert Keyes, who owns 8700--two restaurants that Hall left on bad terms--seem to believe that the life traumas Hall's been through have indeed made him want to settle down.

"He's an outstanding talent," says Keyes. "His problem has been one of focus. And I assume he's in that position at this juncture. I talked to Joe Martori about this and he would agree: There's nobody better if he focuses on what he's doing with his talent, skill, and ability."

Martori describes Hall as a "splendid guy to know," and goes so far as to say that if Hall came to him to open a restaurant and if Martori were convinced Hall had truly matured, then he would not hesitate to invest.

And Edd Zielinski, Hall's boss at Los Abrigados, says he would hire him back "given the right circumstances. I still take an interest in a guy with a lot of talent."

But the cooking community is more skeptical. The stories of Hall's drug use and volatility, which may or may not have been exaggerated with the passage of time, still echo in restaurant kitchen conversation. And although at least one restaurateur admits that drug use is rampant in the industry, no one admits to ever having partied with Todd Hall.

As an indication of their egos, chefs, it seems, are usually referred to by their first names: Vincent, RoxSand, Christopher, Eddie. Hall wants the name "Todd" to be on the one-name list.

RoxSand Scocos of RoxSand, however, has not returned calls, and her husband Spyros describes Hall as self-promoting and denies that his wife and Hall are much more than acquaintances.

Christopher Gross of Christopher's and Alex Stratta of Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician resort both state, reservedly, that they welcome him back to the Valley, politely compliment his food, and then say that they really only know him casually.

Eddie Matney of Eddie's Grill at first takes the same polite tack--and then he lets loose what he really thinks about Hall's chances of becoming an established name in Phoenix fine food:

"I think Todd is capable of it," he says. "I've never seen it because he's always jumped around.

"Whether he has the capability to be disciplined has yet to be seen. He has shown in previous times that he hasn't. I'm hoping this time around he has learned his lesson. He has a family to support. If Phoenix is going to accept him with open arms, he's got to come in and take it one day at a time, not take it in a bulldozer.