Age bias or a kitchen out of control?

Don't expect Lydia Shire to invite Ken Himmel for one of her famous creative dinners at her lovingly restored antique farmhouse in Weston. Look for the warring parties, instead, in a courtroom.

Three years ago Shire, one of the city's pioneering chefs, and Himmel, the megadeveloper and high-end restaurateur, opened the extravagantly expensive Excelsior in the same space Shire reigned for more than a decade at Biba, which in the 1990s set the standard for innovation among Boston's food elite. When Himmel got into a name-calling contest with Legal Sea Foods's chief executive, Roger Berkowitz, in 2003 he cattily advised: ``Tell Roger to go over there [Excelsior] if he wants to see a great restaurant."

Then, a year later, Shire mysteriously departed, allegedly to write a cookbook. Now we know: Shire, one of Boston's most famous chefs, was fired by Himmel, the sharp-elbowed businessman. Now she is suing Himmel for $1.2 million, charging she was fired because of her age. Himmel's lawyer says she was fired because of huge cost overruns and other missteps in the kitchen.

This promises to be an entertaining food fight between two of the biggest names in the Boston restaurant world. It could, before all the depositions are done, also offer a rare window into what is going on in the kitchen of one of the city's priciest restaurants.

On one side is Shire. Starting on the bottom, as a lowly salad girl, Shire built a national reputation for creativity at the Copley Plaza Hotel, Maison Robert, the Bostonian Hotel, the Four Seasons in Los Angeles, and then her Biba, Pignoli, and Exclesior. She and her early mentor, Jasper White, led a movement away from French and toward American cuisine, and trained a generation of Boston chefs. She won a coveted James Beard Award as America's best chef in the Northeast, and she and her partner carefully restored and still run the Boston classic Locke-Ober Cafe in Downtown Crossing.

On the other side is Himmel. A top executive of Related Cos., the giant New York City developer, Himmel is best known in Boston as the builder of Copley Place. But he has been a major player in urban malls all around the country, including the huge Time Warner Center on New York City's Columbus Circle. On the side, he runs Grill 23 & Bar, one of Boston's highest-grossing restaurants, and Harvest in Harvard Square, in addition to Excelsior across from the Boston Public Garden. Two decades ago, he employed Shire as a chef at Harvest.

Now, first in a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and then in a lawsuit in Middlesex Superior Court, Shire charges that Himmel forced her out in favor of a younger chef and seized control of Excelsior.

``Ken told me on the Tuesday after Mother's Day of 2004, while he and I and Tim Lynch [another partner] were sitting in the Bristol Lounge of the Four Seasons that I was `too old to be a chef,' " Shire says. ``My first reaction was to laugh, until I realized he was serious and suddenly, in a kind of a crash moment, I realized that the warnings I had received from others were correct and that his agenda from the start was to push me out of one of Boston's best restaurant spaces."

Himmel won't comment. But his lawyer, Rosanna Sattler, says Shire's charges of age discrimination are preposterous. Why would Himmel, who is 60, hire Shire at 53 and fire her at 56 if age were the issue, Sattler asks? Adds Himmel spokeswoman Jan Saragoni: ``Lydia was unable to live up to virtually any of the terms of her contract. Her kitchen operations were disorganized. She was unable to manage costs or create new menus."

Excel sior opened in mid-2003, replacing Shire's famed Biba restaurant, which opened in 1989, but had been losing steam for awhile. Himmel reportedly put $5 million into the renovation, and gave her a 20 percent equity stake and a $150,000 annual salary, according to her contract filed with the MCAD complaint. (Her husband also was on the payroll.) The reviews were top-notch. Wrote Globe critic Alison Arnett shortly after the opening: ``Excelsior is luxurious, pricey, and often excellent."

But the Himmel-Shire collaboration was troubled from the start. In December 2003, within months of Excelsior's opening, Himmel wrote an e-mail to Lynch saying ``our guy" needed to be the working executive chef, and they needed to ``fully control the kitchen." He went on. ``It's clear to me she is not going to perform at the level we require and will have great difficulty meeting our labor goals. But we also want to make sure this does not turn into a PR nightmare." In conclusion he added: ``It's time we just took control of all this."

In May 2004 Himmel brought in Harvest chef Eric Brennan (``a young hot-shot," she quotes Himmel), to work alongside Shire. Two months later Shire departed for her alleged book leave, and was fired in May 2005, according to her lawsuit. Both Shire and Himmel's lawyer say her operation of the kitchen -- the costs in particular -- were central to their falling out.

``Himmel established wholly unrealistic and unattainable goals for food costs from the beginning," Shire told me. ``Ken was insisting that food costs be kept to 31 percent [of the gross costs] -- virtually impossible for any restaurant of Excelsior's caliber, and something to which I never agreed." She faulted Himmel for ``micromanagement and a lack of appreciation for quality."

Shire, who remains a partner in Excelsior, says revenue at the restaurant has dropped significantly from 2003 to now.

Saragoni, the Himmel spokeswoman, begs to differ. From 1990 to 2003, Himmel grew annual revenue at Grill 23, a steakhouse on Berkeley Street, from $3 million to $13 million. Over the same period, ``Lydia Shire drove Pignoli and Biba out of business," Saragoni said. ``Lydia Shire was on the verge of extinction when Ken Himmel gave her the opportunity to be part of a new business."

Concludes Shire: ``My reputation speaks for itself. It will take a lot more than Ken Himmel to undo that."

Anyone for Excelsior tonight?

Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.