New York Chefs are Heading West

By: Carole Dixon | June 26, 2008 | Dining

With half a dozen New York eateries under the BLT banner, Laurent Tourondel is having a new love affair with the city of angels while taking over the old Le Dome space on Sunset Boulevard. “I like L.A. and I’m looking forward moving out there because it’s going to be such a big restaurant. I’m going to have to commute back and forth to New York for awhile because all my main restaurants are there,” says the French-born chef.
For Tourondel, L.A. has always been a foodie town. “Every single big restaurant is moving to L.A., so I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve always thought L.A. had good food and good restaurants. When I dine in L.A., I always find a good meal at Spago or Lucques.”
Known for excellent cuts of beef including a porterhouse for two, comforting side dishes such as the stack of crispy onion rings and creamed spinach or the legendary Gruyere popovers, Tourondel will tweak the L.A. menu and add a little more raw fish. “The West Coast is more healthy, which I think is a good thing, and the product is so good.”
For the last five years, Tom Colicchio has participated in the Meals on Wheels charity event with Wolfgang Puck when he noticed that a majority of people knew his brand from Vegas, but not New York. “I knew we had a presence on the West Coast, and a healthy, loyal amount of L.A. clientele would pop into the Manhattan eatery when in town,” says Colicchio.
Colicchio was introduced to Bryan Lourd at Creative Artists Agency when he was moving the headquarters to Century City and looking for a great restaurant to complete the project. “That is why I did it,” confirms Craft’s chef. Now the A-list can lunch on Peruvian octopus with Greek yogurt, Australian Wagyu Beef Cheek or leek and duck confit risotto topped off with a maple bacon ice-cream parfait. “People thought I was crazy to open there. Why would you want to go into Century City at night,” he laughs. “Now there is a reason to.”
“I always believe that L.A. people are very much into food. It’s not necessarily a restaurant-centric food culture, but there is a food culture. If you go to the farmers markets, someone is buying all that stuff, cooking it and eating it. And I think there is a true culture that is very into natural, organic, fresh, seasonal food, which is what Craft is all about. I thought that there would be a market for what we do.”
That is not to say that New Yorker’s aren’t conscious about their food or that they don’t frequent the local farmers markets. When Colicchio is on the East Coast, he buys the majority of his goods from farmers. “New Yorkers are living in apartments and not cooking as much, but going out for that experience. I think in L.A. people tend to have kitchens, homes and someone is cooking in the house. There is a different way to go about it, but no real difference. The only real difference is the industry New York is catering to, [which is] mostly Wall Street. And in L.A., we are catering to mostly entertainment.”
Colicchio is also considering getting a place out here to spend more time in the sun. “I spent a month [in L.A.] shooting the second season of Top Chef.” His rare spare time was passed surfing at 7:30 a.m. with David Myers from Sona and Boule. Myers has also imported a former colleague from the East Coast for his wildly popular new French brasserie Comme Ça by hiring executive chef Michael David who worked with Daniel Boulud in New York.
For superstar chefs like Mario Batali, opening Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza in Hollywood was all about his partner, the queen of dough, Nancy Silverton. “I wouldn’t have opened in L.A. without her.” Batali clearly knows a good thing when he sees it, but he isn’t relocating out west anytime soon. His favorite city to cook in is still Manhattan, and Silverton seems to be holding down both venues just fine. “Nancy doesn’t need my help, so I have to find a way to help her that doesn’t get in the way,” quips Batali.
As if the haute toques weren’t enough East Coast infiltration, restaurant owners and hotel magnates are also drawn to Tinseltown at the moment.
STK is a buzzing restaurant and lounge in the New York meat packing district, and now La Cienega Boulevard has a sister version of the high-energy, “female friendly” steakhouse with a conscience and plenty of sex appeal.
Executive chef Dodd Mark Miller brings us his signature foie gras French toast and shrimp rice krispies. Steaks are served in small, medium and large cuts with a variety of toppings and sauces. Sides include thick-cut truffle fries and sweet corn pudding. You can chase all this with a house strawberry rhubarb cobbler cocktail infused with Finlandia vodka, muddled fresh strawberries and topped off with a Graham cracker-crusted rim. Chef Miller feels that it’s not Los Angeles dining that has changed, but the New York attitude. “I think the opportunity is there, so people stopped being so snobby and realized that L.A. is just as important. There is no comparison — it’s two divided worlds — but there are a lot of really good chefs out here.”
“We are very good at creating vibe and energy,” says Jonathan Segal, CEO and owner of The One Group and STK (who also gave us One Sunset.) Already well known for scouting out America’s best party cities and properties with a “high degree of cool factor,” Segal sees L.A. as a “gatekeeper to Las Vegas” not only because many visitors to Sin City are from the greater-L.A. area, but also because “I think the Las Vegas operators feel more comfortable with you if you have a Los Angeles presence, so it was an important move to help leverage ourselves into Vegas.” They also understand the exclusive market here. “L.A. is uniquely different than any other market, it’s a see-and-be-seen city. The whole demographic of the evening is different. In New York, it’s late, it’s party and heavy drinking with louder music. In L.A. its more laid back, and a lot less drinking and a lot healthier eating.”
ICrave Design Studio has used the signature cream, black and purple for many of the multiple rooms at STK. The fickle nightlife crowd will have plenty of different areas to enjoy a meal or attract attention from the main dining room, bistro room, outdoor atrium, clubby Coco de Ville or the adjacent veranda.
New York’s Thompson Hotels has rolled into Beverly Hills and transplanted some much-needed cool sophistication from the Big Apple into the formerly forgettable Beverly Pavilion. According to owner Jason Pomeranc, “We’re not so much trying to bring a hipper crowd to Beverly Hills, but to rejuvenate the existing crowd. Beverly Hills is a great mix of establishment and up-and-coming entertainment industry stars in addition to deeply sophisticated local residents. We believe that this mixture has been yearning for an alternative venue where they can eat, drink and stay, for quite sometime.”
Pomeranc continues, “Los Angeles has an inheritably different attitude than New York. It’s far more spread out geographically, people go out less and distances correlate directly into an earlier social crowd than Manhattan, per se. However, we believe ultimately the product will be appealing to the clientele nevertheless since New York and L.A. share so many common interests and tastes when it comes to food, music and forward-thinking design.”
Designer Dodd Mitchell has successfully merged Hollywood glamour and the California laid-back lifestyle with swinging bohemian New York and urban grittiness. The lobby-level restaurant is a sister of Jonathan Morr’s Bond Street in Manhattan — already known for superior sushi like hot eel dice created by executive chef Hiroshi Nakahara, who is also out here from the east, as well as a top-notch mixologist shaking up sweet saketinis. These two alone should be reason enough to attract the locals.

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