On my recent travels across the Americas, I have twice encountered the combination of Phillipe Starck and an Adria protege. Not quite sure what that little statistic means, but when there’s good and funky food in equally funky surroundings, there’s never a lack of discussion topics that are centred around the space you’re in and the experience is breathes upon you! The SLS hotel in Los Angeles is hom e to Bazaar, where El Bulli graduate Jose Andres flaunts his wares in a Starck designed dining room that plays on the name Bazaar and its permutation of bizarre, a space where the dining room is split into the actual dining space and a bar, patisserie and walk through market space displaying luxuriously priced knick-knacks, a sort of uber souk. Given the nature of the menu and it’s design for sharing, I have to say that with the help of Mr. W and Ms. B, there was fair justice done!
Animal, Los Angeles
It takes 4.5 hours to fly from Chicago to Los Angeles. It takes 4.5 hours to fly from London to Istanbul. Turns out the U.S is a lot larger than I had thought, but could we really fit all the countries between England and Turkey into the U.S? Anyway, on a more cheery note, there’s nothing like having friends all over the world – they put you up, they take you out, they tolerate you and you don’t have to clean up! A few months prior to hitting la la land, I’d heard of a restaurant called Animal that seemingly was one of the hottest tables in town and Mr. W senior was kind enough to bag a table, thus enabling us to continue our round-the-world feasting encounters (Prague, London and Mumbai were priors)! A feast of southern-ish, locally sourced food was to ensue, one where after the meal Mr. W junior remarked “wow…this was so good that anything else I eat from now on, will get serious abuse from my belly!”
