Meet Me at the Brasserie

Three shiny new restaurants speak beautiful French — with an unmistakable L.A. accent.

By Laurie Winer
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

It didn't seem odd that we had none until we suddenly had three--or, we at least have two and another big one on deck.

La brasserie. So many non-French international cities have a couple of good ones-- New York, London, Tokyo, even Chicago. A bright, boisterous all-day kind of restaurant where you can go anytime and wash down a plate of oysters with draft beer, or tuck into a bowl of onion soup topped with good Gruyère before running off to a movie. Or you can sit for a couple of hours and laugh as loud as you'd like with friends over a full meal--Champagne, escargots, salade frisée aux lardons, perfect steak frites. The butter's French, the bread feels fresh and warm as you tear it apart with your fingers. The servers, efficient but never formal, bring plates of cheeses at just the right temperature. Lots of good wines. The clanking of plates and silver. Ah, life.

After suffering some years of decline in Los Angeles, French dining is coming back--brasserie-style. Chef David Myers opened Comme Ça last fall; it's easily the hottest ticket since the Mozzas. Last month, a stylish West Hollywood boutique hotel called Palihouse Holloway introduced its courtyard brasserie, the Hall. And finally, after leaving Bastide four years and two chefs ago, chef Alain Giraud will make his return in the shape of a shiny new venture in Santa Monica called Anisette Brasserie, which, if all goes according to plan, will have its premiere next month.

It's not exactly that we didn't have any brasseries until now--we've had Brass-Cap in Santa Monica and Kendall's Brasserie downtown (part of Joachim Splichal's Patina Group). But this new crop feels different--vibrant and relevant in a new way. Though they may be as serious as Parisians about the food they serve, these new places naturally have an L.A. vibe, a blithe spirit you just don't find in less sunny climes.

It's the rare spot that attracts celebrities and foodies, but from the moment it opened, Comme Ça has been packed with both camps. ( Robert Duvall showed up four days in a row because he could not get enough of the French onion soup.) Clamorous and exuberant, they gather at the bar, sipping serious cocktails that are mixed with care--and served with slabs of ice chipped from a glacial block. At the tables, well-dressed couples share elaborate seafood plateaux and groups of young agents ignore their cellphones while negotiating plates of brandade de morue gratinée and sole meunière.

Why brasseries, why now? Myers says he wanted a place where diners can "forget about everything that's happening outside and just have fun." And he wanted to serve the food he wants to eat. "As soon as I got off the plane in New York," he says, "I'd go to Balthazar or Pastis."

A brasserie is not a bistro. Brasseries are big and brash and noisy; in French the word means "brewery" (the first brasseries brewed beer). Bistros, on the other hand, tend toward the small, quiet and cozy, with ever-changing menus often chalked on a blackboard. Brasseries serve throughout the day and evening and are definitely associated with cities.

It all started in Alsace, explains Anisette's Giraud. "The Germans invaded in 1830," he says, "and a lot of people fled and went to Paris. That's when the brasserie as we know it began, when beer became urban, when Parisians started pairing beer with food. The atmosphere is festive and baroque but never formal."

Avi Brosh, owner of Palihouse Holloway, is a businessman, not a chef. But he too was inspired to open a brasserie because of "two little places called Balthazar and Pastis. "They have been unbelievably successful for years," he says. "It's strange that Los Angeles took so long to emulate them."

Born in Paris, Giraud needed no New York model for Anisette. "A diner is never intimidated at a brasserie," he says. Brasserie food, he explains, is "democratic" and "approachable. It's urban country food; the food is clear. It may have a small twist to it, but you don't deconstruct anything." Think of it this way, he says: "It's serious food without the covenants of serious food."

Downstairs, workers are still hammering away at what will be a long zinc bar (seating about 36) near the front. At a brasserie, continues Giraud, "You always feel comfortable. The service is good, but you don't notice it." In fact, they're waiting for the bar--poured zinc rather than the less expensive skimmed--to be delivered from France, where le zinc (as zinc bars are known) is de rigueur for brasseries. (You'll also find one at Brass-Cap in Santa Monica.)

Comme Ça's look is an Americanized homage to Chanel--there are a lot of clean black-and-white blocks with small splashes of color. And black pillars, tufted white banquettes, black tabletops covered with butcher paper, glossy red Peugot pepper grinders on the tables and touches of silver at the bar. In the back hallway, a long blackboard is filled with chalk drawings, recipes and miscellanea. Up front, backlighted by black-trimmed windows, a fromager carves a wedge of Epoisse on a marble-topped cheese bar--shoppers can drop in and buy from his first-rate selection. The breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, with their blocky French typeface, also say brasserie.

Myers explains that Comme Ça gives him a chance to let his hair down a bit. Sona, his 5-year-old restaurant nearby, is austere, formal, costly and quiet--a "Zen sanctuary," he says. The vibe at Comme Ça, on the other hand, is much more "fierce."

At the Hall, Brosh, who hand-picks or constructs every design element at the restaurant and hotel, went for a dark, sophisticated feel with unusual touches. The intimate dining room, which opens onto an interior courtyard, has marble-topped tables and fan-backed chairs like you'd find in any corner cafe in Paris. But the wood chandeliers look like earrings Goldie Hawn might have worn on "Laugh-In," writ large. Brosh also chose a staghorn fern, which sprouts huge frisée-like fronds, and mounted four of them on boards in a delirious homage to taxidermy. It works, somehow.

And on the plate, chef Stephanie O'Mary (formerly chef de cuisine at the Hollywood Roosevelt's Dakota restaurant) sends out salade frisée aux lardons topped with a poached egg, as well as croque madame, steak tartare and roast chicken with bread salad.

Giraud's partners at Anisette, Mike Garrett and Tommy Stoilkovich (owners of Falcon and Pearl Dragon), wanted a more classic look. In April 2006, they took over a 5,000-square-foot, high-ceilinged space around the corner from Third Street Promenade, in the 1929 Art Deco clock tower building on Santa Monica Boulevard, and renovation began. The walls, they say, will be wood with wainscoting; they'll be hung with antique mirrors. The cement floor will be antique white with mosaic tile, the booths burgundy red.

In Paris, you can count on a brasserie for one large menu that's unchanging all day year-round. At Comme Ça, Myers offers separate breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, but these menus stay essentially the same (though there is a standing rotation of specialités du jour, including Wednesday's choucroûte garnie, a brasserie fave, and Sunday's côte de boeuf for two).

At Anisette, the innovation will be on the plate. The brasserie will also have separate menus, Giraud says, for breakfast, brunch, lunch, late afternoon, dinner and late night. (At first, though, it will offer dinner only.) But don't ask Giraud not to change the menu.

Seasonal dishes, he assures us, will appear as daily specials. "We are one block from the farmers market," Giraud says. "I could serve cherries in December, but I won't. I like to feel connected to the seasons. "When spring is coming, we cook asparagus."

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Comme Ça, 8479 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 782-1178; www.commecarestaurant.com.

The Hall, Palihouse Holloway hotel, 8465 Holloway Drive, West Hollywood, (323) 656-4020; www.palihouse.com.

Anisette Brasserie, 225 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 395-3200; www.anisettebrasserie.com.

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Laurie Winer is a contributing editor at the magazine. Contact her at laurie.winer@latimes.com.