Backbone Gives Glendale a Refreshing Twist on Date Night Dining
Backbone, a gem of an upscale restaurant nestled in the quiet foothills of Glendale, was a dream that took nearly 15 years to come to fruition for chefs (and former McCall’s Meat & Fish Co. owners) Nathan McCall and Karen Yoo.
The power couple, who have fine dining pedigrees from Michelin-starred restaurants (including the now-closed Sona, where they first met in the early aughts, and New York’s Restaurant Daniel), first planted the seed for their own spot in 2009. When plans fell through, they followed a pragmatic course while raising their two young children, shifting gears to run their high-end Los Feliz butcher shop for a decade before selling the business in 2020. In the ensuing years, they also dabbled in real estate and owned a laundromat.
With their kids now older, the partners’ circuitous path has led them back to their roots and what they missed most: being in the kitchen. “We realized that this is what we should be doing and this is where we need to be,” says McCall, who helms the dinner menu, while Yoo is the heart of the pastry program.
“The name ‘Backbone’ is a nod to our history with McCall’s Meat & Fish and its butchery aspect,” says McCall. “And the other side is our understanding and belief that just to be in this industry and doing what we’re doing, you definitely need to have a backbone.”
What happens when two talented chefs finally get the restaurant they’ve wanted for so long? Here’s everything you need to know before you go.
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The dishes playfully meld French, Spanish and Asian flavors.
McCall cooks through the lens of his French training, love of sushi, and high-quality meat and seafood sourcing (a tradition he’s carried over from his butcher shop days). “We don’t do a lot of molecular and fermentation stuff,” he says. “We try to stay a bit more classic with some modern touches, and just try to make delicious food.”
Example A: McCall’s take on blinis and caviar, in the form of fresh uni over silver-dollar waffles, sandwiched between toasted nori butter. The short stack is smeared with yuzu whipped cream and then showered with togarashi and toasted nori powder.
The silky chicken liver mousse, adorned with crunchy chicken skin crumbles and a drizzle of juniper gastrique, arrives humbly at the table in a rectangular slice, accompanied by dehydrated circles of Cara Cara oranges dusted with the Turkish spice urfa biber. “The liver is very rich and delicious, and we use techniques that take away a lot of the unpleasant flavor that people sometimes associate with liver,” says McCall, who purees the offal with butter and egg before baking it in a steam bath. He’s also meticulous about the finer details, like the emulsification process and timing of the bakes.
The desserts will surprise you.
Yoo also takes a whimsical approach to her creations. “There aren’t a lot of places where you can get the level of desserts that my wife produces, so it really completes the package,” says McCall.
One of Yoo’s most unique pastries is her key lime pie. Instead of a slice in triangular form, her rendition is spherical and encrusted in speculoos crumbs, hiding the creamy citrus filling like a gift in the center, with the orb resting atop a base of Chantilly cream and blackberries. Her peanut buttercream chocolate cake also takes it to the next level with the addition of raspberry caramel and honeycomb.
The old-world wines are curated by a seasoned general manager.
In a reunion of sorts, Yoo and McCall brought on their old colleague from Sona, L.A. Renigen, as their general manager. The trio first worked together at the acclaimed restaurant nearly 20 years ago, and since then, Renigen has helped open hotspots like the now-closed WP24 by Wolfgang Puck and Olivia.
Renigen collaborated with the chef at Olivia to create the wine list there, and she does the same at Backbone with McCall. It helps that both have an affinity for natural and Old-World wines. The tight and well-curated menu has 20 by-the-glass options, in addition to 20 bottles that are mostly European, with a smattering of Californian selections. Some notable ones include a light and crisp Ameztoi Getariako Txakolina, a nod to McCall’s fond memories of working in Spain; a natural Jakob Schneider Riesling from a family that has been making wines since 1575 in the Nahe region of Germany; and one of Renigen’s favorites, D’Angelo’s Aglianico del Vulture from the Basilicata region of Italy.
Look out for the special stained glass at the entrance.
The hostess stand is adorned with a four foot-long stained glass with blue and brown geometric patterns that mirror the color palette of the restaurant. Yoo, who picked up stained glass as a hobby during the pandemic, created the piece as an homage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Prairie style, which he popularized nearly a century ago.
The modern space replaced an antique shop.
The storefront that Backbone occupies along Verdugo Road was once an antique shop that had been empty for nearly a decade. With Yoo’s background studying art at UCLA and her former work as a graphic designer, she and McCall revamped the entire 1,600-square-foot space with their own designs and layout, bringing on American Fixtures & Design for the buildout.
Plush deep blue banquettes line a white brick wall and are surrounded by solid walnut wood tables in the 34-seat restaurant, decked out with Mid-century modern touches. In the back corner, the open kitchen gives guests a chance to watch the chefs cooking and weaving around each other in the tiny space. One of McCall’s favorite design elements is on full display at the eight-seat bar: a black marble top with gold veins snaking through it.
“The reaction that we often get from people is that they’re surprised there’s a restaurant like this up here, because it feels like it should be somewhere in the city,” says McCall. “But it also doesn’t feel like a city restaurant because it still has that kind of neighborhood familiarity to it.”
