Eva bares her hearth

Eva Longoria is feeling peckish. Standing in the small exhibition kitchen of her Hollywood restaurant, Beso, the impossibly lithe Desperate Housewives star slices tender skirt steak and sprinkles it with a pinch of coarse salt. She picks up a small piece of steak between thumb and forefinger and bites it. "I'm so hungry, I actually might eat this," the actress says of the chilli-rubbed skirt steak with tortilla fattoush that she is preparing for a photo shoot. Wearing stilettos and a sparkly silver dress with three-quarter-length sleeves — her long nutmeg-brown hair fluffed, her chocolate-coloured eyes liquid — Longoria doesn't look like she belongs in a kitchen. Especially next to the industrious cook dressed in chef whites who stands at a grill next to her, turning out steaks to be delivered to diners. Nonetheless, Longoria, 36, says cooking grounds her and relieves stress from the demands of her hectic schedule. That also explains why she would willingly invest in restaurants, which are notorious for their failure rate. Longoria opened not one but two locations of Beso, one in Hollywood in 2008 and one with a nightclub called Eve in Las Vegas' CityCenter in 2009. This month, she further cements her public love affair with food with the release of her cookbook, Eva's Kitchen. "It's a tough business," Longoria says. She would know. Early this year, Beso Las Vegas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to restructure its debt. Longoria says the restaurant is almost out of bankruptcy and that it had its best month yet in January. And despite the risky nature of the restaurant business, she is part of a storied list of celebrities who have succumbed to its savoury siren song. Fellow travellers in LA include Robert De Niro (Ago, Nobu); James Franco (Writer's Room); Ryan Gosling (Tagine); David Arquette and Kelly Osbourne (Beacher's Madhouse); and Ashton Kutcher (Geisha House). "I really consider the restaurant as an extension of my living room," Longoria says, summing up the appeal for many celebrity restaurateurs. "I can come here to enjoy a night with my friends. I have all my meetings here and when I host required parties I usually have them here." The co-creator Still, it's not all roses for Longoria at Beso, which she calls an international steak-house with a Latin flair. "I'm very hands-on. I co-created the menu [with celebrity chef Todd English]. I picked out this wallpaper, I picked out this leather, I picked out the stools, down to the mixologist and the valet," says Longoria, sipping on a beverage and gesturing around the upstairs lounge. "The tortilla soup and the guacamole are her staples," adds Executive Chef Lincoln Fuge. "I taste the guacamole every day because I know if Eva comes in and tastes it and it doesn't taste like her guacamole, I've gotta change it." In addition to her restaurant holdings, Longoria is the face of L'Oreal; she has launched a signature fragrance; owns her own production company, Unbelievable Entertainment; is involved with the United Farm Workers; and is getting a masters degree in Chicano studies. Then there is her new cookbook, which she calls her No 1 priority. "The cookbook is a memoir of my life told through food," Longoria says. "It shares my journey with food from growing up with a Mexican-American background and experimenting with American cuisine, to obviously being married to a European and learning those influences and regions." (Longoria recently divorced French NBA star Tony Parker.) She was raised on a ranch outside Corpus Christi, Texas, and her childhood was steeped in the complex Latin flavours of the rustic home-cooked meals that her aunt and mother prepared using ingredients they grew in their fields. "Everything in the cookbook has a story behind it," Longoria says. Soupy pride The dish that she takes the most pride in is her tortilla soup. The recipe in the cookbook is also used at Beso. Longoria says she and English revisited it "ten times to make sure we got it right". It calls for chicken legs and thighs, dried Pasilla and ancho chillies, tomatoes, onions, garlic, salt and cilantro. At Beso, the steaming soup is brought to the table in a pot separate from the dry ingredients, which are in a bowl that the soup is poured over. "That's Todd's touch," Longoria says, pleased at the thought. Despite her commitment, Beso did not receive stellar reviews when it opened. The Times restaurant critic, S. Irene Virbila, gave it one star, writing, "Parker bills her restaurant as a supper club ... everyone dressed up, seated at little tables, sipping beverages. Too bad the kitchen isn't performing up to the concept." But Beso is driven by its Hollywood pedigree. "Will Smith came in the other day," Longoria says. "I was out of town but they called me. And again when I was out of town Cristiano Ronaldo, the famous soccer player, came in. And I think that's the most paparazzi we've ever had." As she talks, a waiter puts a plate down in front of her with a small portion of paper-thin butter lettuce drizzled with a whisper of dressing. So much for that skirt steak