Bazaar

Glendale, November 22—

THE TRENDY PLACE down here in Los Angeles seemed to be Bazaar, more properly "The Bazaar by José Andrés at Hotel SLS," which opened just a year ago in a Philip Starck-decorated hotel lobby on South La Cienega in Beverly Hills. Basically a tapas restaurant, its menu divides neatly between "traditional" and "modern" entries, the latter nodding in the direction of Ferran Adria's famous El Bulli in Catalunya. I had mixed anticipations but high hopes for the place: on the one hand I was afraid we'd get a succession of tastes not building toward any sense of an integrated meal; on the other I was curious to see what exquisite surprises might come our way.
In the event, today's lunch was surprisingly ordinary. Refined, with interesting departures, but ultimately quite traditional in its effect. We shared our tapas, Lindsey and I, and we had:

"organized Caesar salad": wraps of soft thin bread containing chopped romaine and anchovy, a raw quail egg atop two of them, grated Parmesan atop the other two.

Pa'amb tomaquet: Catalan style toasted bread with Manchego and tomato

Olives modern and traditional (the latter green olives stuffed with anchovy and pimento; the former bubbles of olive emulsion)

Ensaladilla rusa: potatoes, carrots, mayonnaise, tuna belly

Gazpacho estilo Algeciras (a delicious traditional gazpacho with a dribble of Balsamic vinegar)

Ajo blanco: a "white gazpacho" of almond milk with tomatoes, grapes, raisins, and crab

Butifarra Senator Moynihan: Catalan pork sausage with small white beans
Of all this I liked most my gazpacho and the salad.

The entire series worked out to a perfectly satisfying meal, and ended with the best espresso I've had outside Italy, made with a coffee new to me, Intelligentsia Black Cat, roasted in Chicago.

Albariño, Burgans, Rías Baixas, 2007; Barbera, Le Orme (M.Chiarlo), 2007

Rojo y Blanca at SLS, 465 S. La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills; tel. 310.246.5555