Bouchon’s Beverly Hills location closed at the end of last year after eight years. I came here for one last meal, coinciding with the restaurant’s last Ad Hoc fried chicken Monday. The restaurant holds a special place with this blog. My two visits during the restaurant’s opening weekend was the first post on this blog, ever, and it’s also the place that I sat next to Thomas Keller for dinner.
Yazawa is a chain of restaurants based in Japan specializing in Japanese wagyu beef. The restaurant group has locations in Singapore and Milan in addition to Japan, but this is their first in America. As the server described it to us, what differentiates Yazawa is that they are also a distributor of wagyu cattle; they butcher their own beef in-house and are not required to freeze their meat before serving. As a result, Yazawa serves the largest variety of wagyu I have seen in America. They have some domestic beef varieties too, as well as some chicken and pork cuts all grilled up at the table. A handful of appetizers and side dishes, many of them featuring wagyu, are available too.
Georgie opened just a couple of weeks ago, a brand new concept at the Montage Beverly Hills. It takes the place of Scarpetta, and they’ve swapped one TV chef out for another in bringing Geoffrey Zakarian to prepare his modern American cuisine. This is Zakarian’s first west coast venture after opening up several restaurants in the northeast.
Having dined here just a month ago, I made a quick return to Scarpetta to eat here one last time – on its last day in LA. I dined at the chef’s counter during the restaurant’s opening night in 2010; on this night, it was only fitting to dine here one last time.
Scarpetta Montage Beverly Hills 225 North Canon Dr. Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Dining date: 2/26/16 A few months ago, Scarpetta announced it would close in the spring to make way for another restaurant at the Montage Beverly Hills. Geoffrey Zakarian will be remodeling and creating his own modern American restaurant in the space. From the…
Scarpetta Montage Beverly Hills 225 North Canon Dr. Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Dining date: 7/7/15 I’ve had some great meals at Scarpetta since it opened in 2010. It had been almost two years since I stopped in, so a return visit was long overdue. In my opinion, the restaurant’s best seats are the six at…
CUT Beverly Wilshire Hotel 9500 Wilshire Blvd Beverly Hills, CA 90212 Dining date: 7/15/15 I haven’t been to CUT since 2011 but have generally regarded it as probably the best true steakhouse in the city. I recently put that to the test during a revisit for a birthday dinner. CUT is Wolfgang Puck’s modern interpretation of…
Matsuhisa 129 N La Cienega Blvd Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Dining date: 8/7/14 Nobu Matsuhisa’s massive empire currently stretches 5 continents with over 30 restaurants; he’s easily one of the most successful high-end chef/restaurateurs today. However, it all began here in 1987, where Matsuhisa would establish a name for himself and where he met some powerful…