The Ladies' Gunboat Society at Flores - Starring Brian Dunsmoor

Ohhhhh, boy! The Ladies' Gunboat Society is about to set sail at the Flores site on Sawtelle Avenue, and that area just got a whole lot more delicious. The new restaurant from Brian Dunsmoor (of the Wolf In Sheep's Clothing pop up and Hart and The Hunter) opens to the public tomorrow, and we friends and family got to have a sneak peek the other night as they prepared to open for service.

It feels different and special even before you walk in, as the old-timey boat mural (painted by Dunsmoor's lady, the super-talented Lacey Cowden) lets you know that it's also going to be creative and fun once you step inside.

We were greeted by our friend, Jonathan Strader, the charming and friendly man in charge of the front of the house (and with Dunsmoor through both previous eateries), who set us up with the beer or wine of our choice in the candle-lit bar before we were sat down at our cozy patio table.

The dining room is gorgeous and homey at the same time, but very dark, so none of those pictures really turned out, so you'll have to trust me or see for yourself. We liked the patio, watching the action go by on Sawtelle, which we now have much more of a reason to leave Venice to head for. As soon as we sat down, the free for all began. We wanted to try everything ... and pretty much did, aside from things not available until the official opening tomorrow.

We were so busy eating that I didn't really pause much to photograph things, and/or they were devoured too quickly to capture. These are all brand new dishes to The Gunboat (which in my head I've shortened their name too). You won't find the famous biscuits from the first two places, but you will find the excellent Southern flavors and flair that Dunsmoor is known for.

Like the country ham appetizer from the "Pantry" section of the menu, served with lemon ricotta, spring peas, mint salsa verde and grilled bread. Or the Anson Mills Johnny cakes, with squaw candy, clabbered cream and topped with jewel looking salmon caviar. I've never really given a second thought to boring radishes, but this night, served with Santa Barbara sea urchin butter and sea salt ... I fiended for them. Who knew? Dunsmoor has done a lot to mature my palate throughout our friendship, and I'm sure my Mom wishes he was around when we were little. YUM.

"Field" brought us one fresh and tasty salad after another, all sourced locally and up to the minute seasonal. The Spring vegetable salad was truly Spring itself, with all its bounty, topped off with a goat cheese dressing that created the urge for plate licking ... though we refrained. It was not as civil with the Ricotte polenta with peas and asparagus and snails that was so much a favorite that it nearly stirred up a fork riot, as we all tried to scoop up as much as possible into our own mouths. Sublime.

We had beautiful fish, a pan-fried brook trout, the entire thing, that was just delicate bones on the plate two seconds after it was set down. Served with fiddlehead ferns and a bacon mustard vinaigrette, we couldn't get enough. Same with the blue prawns, doused in chili butter ... we all wanted more for sure. Scottish salmon collars were good too (I love just about everything from the sea), but a little oily for me, which salmon just is.

Speaking of those plates, Miss Lacey drew the design for the custom pieces created at Venice's own Luna Garcia pottery. Delicate flowers set the country table and go beautifully with the other mismatched antique dishes that this wonderful food is set upon. She also did the art for the menu and pieces hanging around the place, so it's a real friends and family endeavor, from top to bottom.

Every restaurant seems to have a signature dish that people tell people to NOT MISS. At The Ladies' Gunboat Society, I'm here to tell you DO NOT MISS the country fried rabbit. Rabbit! A day after Easter, we ate that bunny with no regrets and every one of us wanted a second order instead of dessert. I'm still salivating about that rabbit right now. Seasoned and cooked perfectly, and simply accompanied with spiced local honey and flowering coriander ... it was a total standout. Exceptionally delicious on a whole new rabbit level. The foodiest among us said it was the best he'd ever had, and I believed him. It's never even occurred to me to order it, and now I wouldn't miss it. Reserve your rabbit now.

We also shared the most giant steak I've ever seen, a 28 oz. rib eye, with its roasted marrow, grilled bread, and a warm mushroom and asparagus herb salad. We ate it like cave people, laughing at how good it all was. I mean, Wow.

There was only one dessert on offer this night, a Sweet Anson Mills cornbread with buttermilk ice cream and strawberries romanoff. Certainly Southern, but a bit dry for my/our taste, and again, we all thought about trading it for more rabbit. After all that gorgeous food, you didn't really need dessert anyway.

 The wine and beer flowed and friends clinked glasses and laughed our heads off. It already felt like a usual hang, and the warmth and welcoming, awesome service (even on the first night out!) was exceptional.

I peeked into the vastly larger kitchen that Dusnmoor has been set loose within, to find my friend cooking up a storm, while smiling from ear to ear.

It's so great when you get to see people really doing what they love to do, under optimal conditions. That's when you get food like this, both incredibly creative and stimulating (educational, even), but also so comforting that you could be dining in Dunsmoor's home (which you basically are, these days).

 His cooks and staff have his back, and if the first night was any indication of how things are going to go, you should probably get on the old opentable.com and get your reservation set in stone now.

I'm now a proud member of The Ladies' Gunboat Society at Flores ... where everyone is welcome.


The Ladies' Gunboat Society at Flores
2024 Sawtelle Blvd.
L.A. 90025
424.273.6469

AK Supper Club - Concept over Chef

Well, I get back into town and it's right back into the swing of things. I returned to a message from my friend, Alona Cooke, that the AK Supper Club has a new chef, already! Gone is Kevin Kathman, after some what sounds like mutual disagreements about the concept (that, interestingly, he also had at his last restaurant gig in Minneapolis, at the end of my friends street, where I just was), and in is Benadicto Gell, formerly of The Yard, Joe's and Red Medicine.

I had an impromptu opening in the action and met Alona at AKSC (formerly Capri) to sample the new menu and meet Mr. Gell. Oh, MAN, was it good!  We discussed the vision for the space, and it's really more of a Pop Up CHEF concept vs. Pop Up Restaurant ... "It's an adventure .. it's never the same experience," said Cooke.

Well, she's right there. The first dish we tried was an appetizer of scallop crudo, which I described as a dish a Mermaid would make to impress the Fairy Godmother of her Prince Charming. Does that sound gushy? Fine, it's worthy. Raw scallops in their shell sit in a pool of soothing, cool cucumber and melon water. Scattered over and around this loveliness are pearl currants that pop with tartness and look like jewelry from the sea. Topped with Thai basil and Peruvian mint, the ladies at the table could only laugh and roll our eyes. "I want to jump in and swim around", said one friend. I just shook my head and uttered, "It's like alchemy." Yuuuuuum. Summertime perfection.

Equally yet differently delicious were the shell on salt and peppery shrimp appetizer special that you just ate with the shell on because to not do so would be just weird with all that flavor. GOOOOOD. It reminded me of the Virgin Islands for some reason, and came with little slices of grapefruit and tangelo and tiny slices of red pepper that just combined to burst into savory perfection in your mouth. I loved it obscenely.

As I did the ridiculous lamb entree served with black figs, wild mushrooms and blackberry mustard. Within that were these little crunchy bits that turned out to be rendered crispy lamb fat chunks that were so full of flavor, formerly civil friends began to eye one another's hands with an eye to stab them with forks if they took one of those little guilty pleasures. "Aromatic." "I don't usually gnaw, but I'm going to." (ok, that was me).

The braised pork with mangu (a mixture of mashed yucca and plaintains - "African.") was an autumnal dish that would go well with crisp evenings and fireplaces. It also featured little crispy pork bits, and we again searched like truffle hogs around in the plate for them. Holy moly.

I called the poached black cod in corn broth bland ... until I almost drowned from my watery eyes due to a peppery bite that I wasn't prepared for. Take that, the cod appeared to say. Burned.

After we finished up this "Bacchanal of Pleasure" with some "Best Ever" coffee ice cream, we sat around and chatted with the talented new chef, Benedicto Gell. He's from Boston with Dominican heritage, so he's got flavor influences from all over. It's fun to talk to people about food when they so clearly love it dearly and want to share that with you. It's like Alona said, "You follow your instincts and your nose, not a Michelin guide." True. And you only have two weeks to get in on the current action starring Gell. Then it will be a new adventure, and I'm sure I'll tell you all about it, and try not to drool on you while I'm at it. Go. Now.


AK Supper Club
1616 Abbot Kinney
Venice
310.392.8777
Tuesday through Sunday, 6 - 11ish


*I also spoke with lovely Kailani who is taking over the former Wolf In Sheep's Clothing daytime operations. They're opening soon on Melrose and Fairfax and will be called The Hart and The Hunter. It promises to be out of this world again, and you can say you had it first as Wolf In Sheep's Clothing in Venice. Mmmm.



***UPDATE  - AK Supper Club is now closed for good. Will let you know about what goes into the Capri space, which we will all miss.

GTA (Gjelina Take Away) Is Open - and Awesome

GTA, the new breakfast and lunch spot from our pals at Gjelina, is now open for business, right next door to G-Dogs, as we call it. (I don't really know why, we just do.) It was slow to open, and I'd walk by all the time, bug Travis (Lett, Gjelina's chef, great guy and neighbor) about it, and now our patience has been amply rewarded.


EVERY morsel I have consumed from this rustic and classy at the same time counter is pretty much eyes roll back in your dang head delicious. The blueberry brown sugar scone - ummm, wow. I've never been much of a scone gal, as I find them dry and boring, but now I could scone it up on a daily basis. That's because there's a bunch of different - and all jamming - flavors. Bacon & Date. Berry and Ricotta. Oatmeal and something. Awesome and awsome. Those, plus delish coffee cake, fresh strawberry turnovers - if you get there early and lucky enough, egg sandwiches, biscuits, cookies, tra la la! Gorgeous coffees (cortado dulce, please!) too, but they don't yet have take away cups, so you have to stand there and slam it, which I can't always do. That all goes on until 11:30, and then they switch to lunch.


Lunch. MMMM sandwiches - I've had the roast turkey and roast beef, (because I'm not at all afraid of meat) and both are what your Mom might make, if you have a good cooking Mom. The bread is made right there in their fiery ovens, with gorgeous "ears" sticking up - a term Travis taught me, those ridges that rise up on artisan breads. The same right-on pizzas that they kill you with next door. Limeade that tastes just like Summer. I'm so happy somewhere this good is only a stone's throw from home, and I already know pretty much everyone that works there. THAT is a neighborhood joint, never mind the hype.

Speaking of hype ... a little editorial here ... Much has been made of Gjelina and its no substitutions* policy of late. I completely admire Travis and Co. for sticking to their guns and making the policy apply to everyone, across the board. It's about time someone went a little Pinko in an LA restaurant! If some random "Don't you know who I am?!" outraged celeb can't handle their demands being denied for once, order something else. Go someplace else. Grow up!


Early on I wrote a story about Travis and Gjelina, with the title, "Gjelina's Food Artist", and that's what he is. Just taste his stuff and try and debate it. You wouldn't say to a painter, "Hey, I'd rather have you use red here than blue". Or tell a musician what chord to play and when. Why is it any different for a guy who chooses to express himself through food? It isn't. And if you can't handle that, just don't go there. Then another table will open up for someone with an open mind, and you can get your ass kissed in West Hollywood or wherever. Everybody wins.

I'm already looking forward to tomorrow's scone, and some friendly chit chat with my brothers and sisters at my new favorite hang in the 'hood. Venice style.


* For the record, at GTA you MAY have omissions (I don't care for the kale on the egg sandwich and I hate mustard, so bonus!) but you may not have additions. So there.

GTA
1427 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice

Travis Lett - Gjelina's Food Artist

"Travis Lett is a good person. He's an artist too, and his artistry is food." So said my friend, photographer Kwaku Alston when I was doing a story on him (2/16/10)and talking about his favorite Venice spots, of which Travis's restaurant, Gjelina, is most certainly one. I've seen Travis around for years, and couldn't be happier that such a really good guy's business endeavor has taken off so well {Full disclosure: it's one of my favorite Venice spots too, so this is gonna be totally biased, OK? Cool.}. So well that he's a super busy guy and it was only yesterday that we finally had a chance to sit down for a minute and share a few Venice/life stories.

Travis is from New Jersey, grew up there and then headed off to UC-Boulder to study fine art ... painting, sculpting, all of it. He always liked to cook, and his Grandparents were farmers in Ohio, so he grew up with a healthy appreciation for the origins and benefits of naturally grown produce, and the sources of food is still what interests him the most about the field. When interns or someone asks Travis when he decided to be a Chef, his answer is, "I still haven't." Meaning he never chose it as a career, but paid for his art schooling by bumping around as a prep cook, and got really good at it, until a friend in L.A. needed someone to help him open his sushi restaurant (Tengu), and off Travis went, for what he thought would be a few months.

That few months stretched out longer, and after crashing in Hollywood or his car for a while, that got old and he looked for a place in Venice, as he said, "It was obviously the place to be, where I gotta be ...". (I exactly know the feeling he speaks of. Clearly.) He found a place down by Speedway & Horizon, and has been in Venice ever since. 930 in the Westwood W Hotel hired Travis as Chef and he began his "rough draft" concept for what Gjelina would become in the future, by buying everything he could from Farmer's Markets, organic and local, and creating menus based on seasonal availability. This was a bit more radical at the time, especially for a Corporate-owned hotel restaurant, so after a while, it was time again for Travis to move on. (Yay).



While doing some restaurant consulting gigs, and trying to sort out what was next for him, Travis would walk from his place to Abbot's Habit to get coffee and work, and passed by this building on the corner every day, with an open half-door, with Pit Bulls inside. He's say hello to the dogs and soon got to talking with the owner, Fran Camaj, who just so happened to want to open a restaurant in the space there that he already owned. From the very beginning, they agreed on the local, organic, seasonal approach to a menu, as well as the idea that it needed to reflect the Venice Community. A third partner, Robert Schwan - another long-time Venice resident and restaurant manager (72 Market Street, Wabi Sabi) - shared their vision, and they took a chance on hiring a young Chef in Travis that valued his creative freedom and ideals (Oh, the designers and architect too - all Venice folk). They have backed him up every step of the way, and the mad success of Gjelina has been their reward for their (not much of a) risk.

Gjelina is named for Fran's Albanian mother, hence the Albanian "Gj" spelling. It is always busy, and people are always enjoying it. The back patio is my favorite place to sit, enjoying truly delectable dishes (and maybe some lovely wine?) in the sunshine of the 'hood. When discussing the fruition of his vision, Travis told me that "what's dear about it to me is that we're getting food from the right sources." They purchase their ingredients from local artisan producers, from olive oil makers, to cheese, to the gorgeous produce at the Farmer's Market right up the street. Because of their dedication to this, Travis said, "There is a shifting balance in the way people think about their food, you can feel it happening." And it's because of people like him that this is so.

Travis said he thought that if you communicate with, and understand your customers, offering them a fun, stylish place, with delicious food, created with integrity and in a value-driven sense, Venice would react resoundingly well - and they have. He straight up says that this restaurant was opened with the belief that it was meant to be HERE, for the people of the area, and would be irrelevant out of its context (like when people want him to open one up in Vegas). He wanted it to represent US, and be a place for the Community to gather (and these days the A-list celebrities really seem to want in on that Community too ... what are you gonna do?). The partners' idea was that they wanted to have a place "that seems like it was already here." I think they've nailed that ... that bustling corner of Abbot Kinney now seems like it was always so.

I told Travis that I have a problem, and that is that I love certain things on his menu SO much, that I have to get them every time, lest I be haunted by them for days later (looking at you, Gruyere/Caramelized Onion/Fromage Blanc/Arugula Pizza & Butterscotch Pot de Creme with Salted Caramel and Creme Fraiche - of which I have said I might want it to be my last taste on Earth. For real.). He laughed and said where some people might take off the 4 least-selling items on a menu, he'd rather take off the 4 BEST sellers, so that people try something new, as he wants his guests to "Experience this place WITH me." I promise, in that case, to open my taste buds up next time, at least a little. Which is also why the delish BLT you might love and want every time may not always be on the menu. The tomatoes out of season will not be served by Travis at Gjelina, but when they're back and thriving, you'll appreciate that ol' sandwich all the more. (and those tomatoes will soon be grown right on Gjelina's own rooftop garden!) The same bit of a rebel (in a city - Greater L.A. - of ass-kissers, let's face it) yell comes out with Travis in the little comment on the front of the menu that says, "changes and modifications politely declined". I completely respect this, as I feel like it's his vision, no ma'am, you cannot have your dressing on the side, hold the everything, annoying little requests. But Travis explains it more like it's not his elite Chef that knows everything better than you stance, it's that "I'm kind of a Socialist when it comes to my Restaurant ... I want to please everyone the same." So the dishes are all prepared the same way, he encourages his staff to not spend extra energy on one person over another, and if customers are cool, they may get the extra attention to their experience, vs. the ones who like to hear themselves bitch about everything (my read on them, not his).



We chatted in the sunny, huge-window-ed upstairs of Gjelina, that is now a cool apartment-type place to kick it, but may soon host private dinner affairs. What a great space to talk about Venice and one's place in it - overlooking all the AKB businesses and foot traffic, people honking, waving, and dinging bike bells below us.

And speaking of bike bells ... I was telling Travis about my stolen/returned Delores the Bike story to explain my desire to build Community and tell our stories to each other, and it turns out he has a good one of his own. His Beach Cruiser was taken from his yard, an all too often told bummer of a tale. He wrote it off, and hoofed it around instead for about six months. Then one day he was leaving his house and there was his bike, back in the yard, having been fully improved, complete with freshly pumped up tires, and even some replaced parts. He said there may have been some Burning Man Playa dust on it, but he couldn't be sure if it was the thief's, or his own leftover memories. How about that?! Another one that makes you go, "Only in Venice". That would also go for Travis's feelings about Gjelina, and where he wants to be.

EAT LOCAL!

(Extra points if you can bike or walk there. Which we can.)


Gjelina
1429 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, 90291
310.450.1429