This splashy new WeHo restaurant wants to take you on Italian holiday
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- The East Coast’s Cucina Alba opens its L.A. outpost on Melrose Avenue.
- Plus, one of Japan’s biggest skewer specialist hits the South Bay.
- New York-style bagels are big in Los Feliz, and more.
The inventive pastas, vacation-inspired Italian cuisine and lengthy wine list of New York City’s Cucina Alba have landed in West Hollywood.
At Alba, one of the city’s splashiest new Italian restaurants, chef-partner Adam Leonti and restaurateurs Will Makris, Cobi Levy and Julian Black reimagined their East Coast hot spot, with much of the team relocating or returning to L.A. for what they hope will be the Alba flagship.
Even as they built the original New York City location, they planned for Los Angeles. They flipped a Melrose art gallery and a parking lot into a chic multilevel space: On the ground floor is an interior dining room, plus an almost terrace-like setting with dining tables, a bar and semiprivate cabanas all under a retractable roof. On the second floor is a private dining room for 36, as well as a private bar. Within the next year, the team hopes to unveil a rooftop garden, playing into Alba’s themes of a breezy Italian holiday.
“The idea of sun-kissed Italy was really the vacation mentality that we started with,” said Leonti, who cooked in Italy as well as at the lauded Vetri for a decade. “My background was [that] we really served the food of the country, which is vastly different than how people look at Italian food here. For years and years and years, all of these chefs like Nancy Silverton would teach you about Italy, and finally people learned. When we started talking about what it meant to do an Italian restaurant in New York, or here, it was: We now are in a time that we thought was exciting. We could actually thread the needle of Italian food and Italian American food, to kind of play the hits of both.”
At Alba, rustic influences blend with haute cuisine. Just-singed Roman artichokes dip into a vegan mustardy bagna cauda, shrimp lie on a bed of hearty pesto alla trapanese made with marcona almonds. The dishes that lean Italian American can be playful, such as the lobster cardinale “seashells,” which riff on stuffed shells in miniature form. The “garden” section of the menu is exclusive to the L.A. location.
“California is the closest thing that you’re gonna find to Italy, outside of Italy,” said Black, a Carbone and the Grill vet who was born and raised in Los Angeles. “We talk about the farmers market every day; the only other place you’re gonna find produce that good is Italy.”
Roughly 15% to 20% of Alba’s menu is proprietary, or wholly unique to this kitchen, such as the caramelized-onion agnolotti, a signature dish of both locations, which arrives swimming in a fonduta of 36-month-aged cheese topped with truffle, or the almost pyramid-like ravioli not made with pasta but a paper-thin polenta dough. The rest are versions of classics done with a spin, such as the basil trofie — served as Leonti’s grandparents would in Liguria — but here made using techniques that make the pesto herbs’ greens more vibrant.
In L.A., the team expects to rotate the menu more frequently. To drink, there are classic and house negronis, martinis, margaritas and spritzes, and a substantial mostly Italian wine list with an eye for outstanding vintages. Alba is open Tuesday to Saturday from 5:30 to 11 p.m.
8451 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (424) 484-3992, cucinaalba.com
Boichik Bagels
One of the Bay Area’s top bagel makers recently expanded to Los Angeles with New York-style bagels and bialys that replicate the childhood flavors of the chain’s founder. Originally a mechanical engineer, New Jersey native Emily Winston spent years trying to precisely replicate the bagels she’d eaten with her father at Zabar’s or H&H bagels in New York City (the latter of which is slated to open in Santa Monica). After “an obsessive hobby” became a popular pop-up, Winston debuted Boichik Bagels as a way to bring the East Coast to San Francisco, and now to Los Feliz.
“Ex-New Yorkers move west and bemoan the lack of the New York bagel that they remember from years before,” Winston said. “This is just all about that nostalgia and having that Proustian-madeleine, ‘Ratatouille’ moment. There’s lots of great bagels and creative bagels, but to have the bagel of your memory? A food memory is such a deep, emotional thing.”
Boichik bakes roughly 15,000 bagels a day across its 10 locations. Its newest is filling a former Umami Burger space with more than a dozen flavors — in classics as well as “pumperthingle,” or pumpernickel everything — plus a pared-down menu of bagel sandwiches with a daily special, frozen bagels to take home, coffee and cream cheese in options such as Hatch chile, lox and horseradish cheddar scallion.
Boichik’s bagels aren’t of a sourdough variety, though they’re developed similarly, with the bagels resting in a humidified fridge a day ahead of their bake to develop more flavor. They’re kettle-boiled and baked on long wooden planks in a Ferris-wheel-like oven that constantly rotates, resulting in a chewy, slightly sweet bagel with an even, golden crust. Boichik Bagels is open daily from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., with a grand-opening party slated for March 2. More L.A. locations, including an outpost in downtown’s Bradbury Building, are in the works.
4655 Hollywood Blvd., (323) 407-6287, boichikbagels.com
Kōast
Chef Kevin Meehan and his team operate one of the Larchmont area’s most prestigious restaurants — Michelin-starred Kali — but now, a little farther west on Melrose, they’ve opened seafood-centric Kōast.
Meehan is exploring coastal bounty at his new 60-seat spot with raw-bar offerings like yellowfin with vadouvan curry and yellowtail in spiced buttermilk; a selection of “lightly touched” cured fish, caviar and ceviche; and larger plates such as local rock cod in cioppino broth.
While the menu is primarily inspired by the Pacific Ocean, the chef is drawing from the East Coast and the rest of the world as well, with dishes such as hot Maryland-style crab dip and pasta in octopus-flecked XO sauce. As with Kali, sommelier Drew Langley is a partner in Kōast and is overseeing an ample beverage selection of wine, beer, sake and nonalcoholic beer and wine. Kōast is open Sunday to Thursday from 5 to 9:30 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m.
6623 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 262-1711, koastrestaurant.com
Torikizoku
Last year, Torikizoku hospitality group debuted in the U.S. with Redondo Beach restaurant Zoku, the brand’s high-end take on Japanese grilled skewers.
Now, the Osaka-founded company behind one of Japan’s most popular kushiyaki chains unveiled Torikizoku, its popular and more budget-friendly option for charcoal-grilled chicken, vegetables, whole shrimp and more.
Torikizoku was founded in 1985 and operates more than 600 restaurants in Japan; its first American location landed in a Torrance strip mall with nearly all skewers priced at $4, in options such as momo (chicken thigh), hatsu (chicken heart), tsukune (chicken meatball), quail egg, scallop, whole shrimp and blistered shishito peppers.
The menu also offers sides like crispy chicken skin salad in ponzu; grilled onigiri; small bowls of yuzu shio ramen; and curried potato salad. With the exception of large bottles of wine, sake and shochu, everything at Torikizoku is priced at either $4 or $8, including cocktails, sake pours, beer and dessert. At the center of the restaurant the staff season and grill skewers over Japanese charcoal, with some seats available at the bar to view the action. Torikizoku is open Wednesday to Sunday from 5 to 9:30 p.m.
21839 Hawthorne Blvd., Torrance, (310) 850-6785, instagram.com/torikizoku.usa
Xibei Dumplings
A dumpling chain with nearly 400 storefronts in China just touched down in Silver Lake, bringing delicate, handmade shaomai to the U.S.
Xibei Dumplings’ newest restaurant can be found in the new Sunset Row development complex, where chef Meng Defei’s team brushes layers of paper-thin dough with flour before folding it around lamb; beef; chicken with mushrooms and bok choy; shrimp with zucchini and egg, and more. The plump, signature shaomai can be steamed or pan-fried and are the specialty of the prolific dumpling chain, but Xibei Dumplings also offers scallion pancakes, popcorn chicken, a Chinese burger, corn pancakes, crystal noodles in sesame sauce, freshly brewed tea and other regional items.
The dumpling chain’s first U.S. location offers a more pared-down menu than those of its Chinese locations, some of which have operated for more than three decades, but specials could be added in L.A. — along with more outposts. Xibei Dumplings is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
3300 W. Sunset Blvd., Suite 105, Los Angeles, (323) 760-8066, xibeidumplings.com
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