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The food is an ode to the cultures that make up Los Angeles.
Don’t let the word “bistro” lead you astray: This is not explicitly a French restaurant, although Thompson does employ some French culinary techniques. “I like to call it Angeleno cuisine because it takes all of the influences of L.A. — whether it’s an Armenian grill technique, Thai vinaigrette, or Mexican chile marinade — spoken through the ingredients that are grown within 300 miles of the restaurant,” says Thompson, a Santa Monica Farmers’ Market devotee who has spent years building relationships with beloved local farms like Flora Bella, Coleman Family, and Schaner Family Farms, among others.
Thompson’s pared-down menu changes often, and involves a handful of à la carte dishes (and add-ons like his house-baked bread and rustic terrine), that, if all ordered together, happen to make for a fine tasting menu. One standout, the simply named “Cucumber, Squid” sees Japan-sourced bigfin reef squid sliced into batonettes and aged in-house, mixed with smashed Chinese-style cucumbers from Beylik Family Farms. The mixture is dressed with a rare white tamari and yuzu kosho, torn shiso leaves, and lemon zest, and finished with a dusting of red yukari (dried ground shiso; the same that color umeboshi). “It’s an interpretation of the nigiri you would get at Oomasa in Little Tokyo when you’re just hanging out with your friends,” says Thompson. “It’s nothing crazy, but it takes it to another place.”
Another stunner that showcases Thompson’s creative side: his pine nut cookie, similar to the soft and chewy Italian almond paste macaroons, that he pipes with waves of cucumber crémeux, dots with candied rhubarb and delicate fennel fronds, and sprays with fragrant thyme vinegar. The result is fantastic: a perfect blend of textures, acidity and creaminess.
The wine curation is very personal.
In the six years that Schwartz has lived in L.A., he’s formed close relationships with California wine producers and distributors who import largely from France, both of which inform his tightly crafted 40-bottle list. Some of his favorite domestic producers include Stagiaire Wine, Llewellyn, and R. O’Neill Latta, though Schwartz considers the beating heart of his list the offerings from Roussillon, the southernmost point of France, where he has spent significant time.
“They can have salinity, be easy-going whites, or rooted, brine-like earthy reds,” says Schwartz, who is drawn to wines with a storied background, like ones that come from a tiny 20-person village, or others that lean into the terroir of a mountain vineyard. When perusing the full bottle list, keep an eye out for Schwartz’s poetic descriptions. Take this one, of the Damien Bureau’s Amandine White Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley: “Lush, foamy bubbles cover the scars of its broken past.”
As for the by-the-glass options (which, like the dishes, changes frequently), they’re simply listed as “bubbles, white, orange, red.” An orange could be a Macabeu from Catalunya in Spain, and a red might be a Cinsault from the Languedoc in France. It doesn’t stop there. “If someone asks for something really specific and we know it’s stored away but we think it’d be perfect, we’ll start digging through boxes and get those people what they need,” said Schwartz.
Much of the design elements come from a Douglas fir tree.
Thompson and Schwartz enlisted their friend, artist Grayson Revoir, to build out the interior. The walls, lacquered in a green mossy hue, complement the golden wood elements that touch nearly every surface of the 36-seat space. Revoir recovered Douglas fir from a yard in Yuma, Arizona and milled it down to fabricate the floors, tabletops, shelving, window frames, and speaker boxes. A stunning rectangular sconce that runs across the length of one room is made from the same material. “It’s all really gorgeous wood that he cared deeply about and put a lot of love, pride, and heart into,” says Thompson.
There’s a few pieces of art in the 1,500-square foot space, including a small, wood-framed series of interlocking stones carved with faces, designed by Schwartz’s friend Matt Byrd, a sculptor in North Carolina. In another room, there’s a piece depicting a table setting with a central plate of fish bones, painted by the Greece-based multidisciplinary artist Anouk Aumont, who has also tattooed Schwartz on a few occasions.
The menus have a special design.
When Thompson held his pop-ups at the Normandie Club, he used to hand-write all of the menus. Troy Curtis Zaretsky-Kreiner, a friend of Thompson and Schwartz’s who designed the restaurant’s website, converted Thompson’s neat handwriting into a digitized font, which they now use to type out all of the menus. (It could be named “Baby Bistro Font,” jokes Thompson.)
Take a stroll in the garden.
Behind the restaurant, there’s patio seating that’s just within reach of a small banana grove with towering leaves and cascading pink bougainvillea vines. A few steps away, the grassy garden opens up to a peachy rose bush, and orange and yellow nasturtium flowers. The garden adds to the charming and relaxed feel of the entire operation. “We think about [the restaurant] like we’re bringing people into a home, in terms of how we greet and talk to them at their table, all in this cozy little atmosphere together,” says Schwartz.
