The Dish: Church & State chef to strike out on his own

Church & State chef Walter Manzke announced that he is leaving downtown’s most-popular bistro to pursue opening his own restaurant. Manzke says that he has a space (or two) lined up but that nothing is finalized yet.

“My wife [Marge] and I came down here with the plan of opening our own place, and now it looks like we’re really close,” Manzke says. “Everything’s going a little slower than anticipated.... It’s looking like it’s going to take a little time. There are a couple of things I’m looking at, actually.”

Meanwhile, Manzke’s successor has started at Church & State. Joshua Smith was formerly chef de cuisine at Anisette Brasserie in Santa Monica.

Chef Laurent Tourondel leaves BLT Group

Laurent Tourondel and his partner at BLT Restaurant Group have split. The company announced in a release that Tourondel is no longer involved in its wholly owned restaurants, including BLT Steak restaurants in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. They’re part of the restaurant empire built on a concept of Americanized French cooking to which Tourondel lends his name (BLT stands for Bistro Laurent Tourondel).

“I will continue to work with BLT management on their licensed hotel restaurants and will manage the back-of-the-house operations for those facilities,” Tourondel said in an e-mail. “In addition to this I am currently working on upcoming projects that will be run independently from BLT.”

At BLT Steak in Los Angeles, which opened in late 2007, Brian Moyers’ new title is executive chef.

Culina, Modern Italian is open at Four Seasons

Restaurant Culina, Modern Italian has opened at the Four Seasons Hotel on Doheny Drive. It replaces the hotel’s Gardens restaurant, and is meant to evoke an enoteca — or at least the Beverly Hills version of one. Communal wine-tasting tables made from a 200-year-old fallen magnolia tree stand next to the wine room, there are displays of artisan products (some of which are for sale), and a glass urn of house-made limoncello sits atop the bar.

Chef de cuisine Victor Casanova (what a name!) says he has created a menu that parallels his approach to the Italian kitchen, emphasizing simplicity. Casanova cites influences from Tuscany, Sardinia, Rome, Calabria and Piedmont. The restaurant features a crudo bar, and Casanova’s menu spans antipasti, salads, house-made pasta and pizzas, and entrees such as California swordfish with eggplant caponata. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served.

300 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, (310) 860-4000, https://www.culinarestaurant.com.

Also:

Urban Noodle is open downtown. 118 W. 4th St., Los Angeles, (213) 626-2893.