How to get into Wilds, one of LA’s hottest new restaurants
Four days a week the line for Wild stretches down the block, even in the rain. One of the city’s tastiest new restaurants sees guests queuing for lightly salted sea bass fried to a crispy crisp, or tender duck rillettes, or rich slices of Welsh rarefied – a rarity in Los Angeles. The modern British menu at Wilds is making waves off Los Feliz, and so is the entree line.
Owners Natasha Price and Tatiana Ettensberger envisioned The Wilds as a one-of-a-kind walk-in restaurant built for the neighborhood. They never imagined the immediate buzz for those 10 tables, nor the lines that form every day before the doors open.
“The response and the turnout we’ve gotten has been overwhelming and incredible,” said Attensberger, a former manager of Cafe Trust and a wine buyer, “and it’s also heartbreaking that there are only so many people we can sit in.”
Pastry case — and line outside — during day service at Wilds in Los Feliz.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
About 80% of their seats are reserved for walk-ins, and 20% of reservations are spread throughout the night. Guests put their names down and get a text when the table is ready, usually an hour and a half or two hours later. If there are seats at the small counter by the front window of the restaurant, one can sit and drink wine and small plates as long as there is a table.
At 9 p.m., Attenberger said, there’s almost always room to walk in the dining room. Her best advice is to leave early or arrive late, or put your name down in anticipation of a wait, and then stop for drinks at a few other neighborhood mom-and-pop bars and restaurants until that text alert.
Gone are the white tables during daytime service, turnover times are fast, guests order at the counter and small glass pedestals of sausage rolls, tea cakes, scones and quiches line the shelves near the register.
Price and Attensberger look to British cuisine as their menu approach, but Wilds also incorporates light touches and seasonings of Californian cuisine.
“There are so many wonderful flavors that run through British cuisine,” Price said. “At the same time, in my opinion, a lot of it is just rustic and using local ingredients, and we have that here.”
Homemade cuppa de testa with pickled golden beets and whipped lardo at Wilds.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
Their whole hog program means crackers in kohlrabi salad, house-made cuppa de tessa with garlic-whipped lardo and fresh-ground banger—or sausage—on top of mashed potatoes with brown sauce mostarda. The program is inspired and led by chef de cuisine Sarah Durning, former pastry chef at Dunsmore and butcher in Gwynn.
British food, they agreed, gets a bad – and wrong – rap for being dirty. They try to pepper in these “surprises,” like heads for curry or HP sauce, in secret methods to create what Price calls “that little question mark that happens,” keeping diners interested or on their toes.
Their friendship is long. Price and Attensberger met at ages 1 and 2; Their family would spend every Friday night together, usually eating out at independent restaurants in LA.
“That was all we knew,” Ettenberger said. “This is how you socialize, this is how you spend the weekend: go to restaurants and have fun with the people you like.”
This shared foundation is what led them to open a restaurant together, and the restaurant is named for Price’s sister: the first child in a new generation from their family, who all grew up around dinner tables.
Ettensberger and Price moved to the Northeast separately in their early teens, with Price cooking in NYC at MoMA PS1. When the two moved back to L.A. they started a chain of popular patio-themed diners called Second – and began planning their own full-fledged restaurant.
A scone with jam and whipped cream, right, with a bacon butty during Wild Day service.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
Price was born in England and visited family throughout her life, but when she began her cooking career, British cuisine was never the focus. It wasn’t until they started mapping out Wilde that her mind turned to what felt like home: tasty bites, hearty fare and “simple food on a plate,” all in sync with Attensberger’s wine leanings toward older pairings. Her emphasis on independent vintners, she said, points to Price’s local farm mentality.
Desserts are curated by Durning, and are what Price calls “cheesy but really intentional,” like sticky toffee pudding with a vanilla bean crust and sticky toffee.
This menu is what draws guests to Wilds for the hours-long wait. But the team hopes that when the opening rush dies down, it’ll make it to the neighborhood startup.
“I don’t think it’s always going to be that way,” Ettenberger said. “Obviously it can’t be. If we’re very lucky where people still want to eat here often, maybe we should go to reservations somehow. But it’s definitely something we’re experimenting with and trying to figure out.”
Wilds is open Wednesday to Saturday from 8am to 1pm and from 5.30pm to 10.30pm.
1850 Halhurst Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 284-8178, wildesla.com
Grilled oysters at Clark’s Oyster Bar in Malibu.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
Clark’s Oyster Bar
The first Clark oyster bar landed in Montecito and the Bay Area. Now the popular Austin-based seafood restaurant is slurping oysters in Malibu, slicing crab and slurping New England clam chowder.
Board daily specials at Clark’s Oyster Bar in Malibu.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
Clark’s restaurant group, MML Hospitality, operates more than 20 restaurants in Texas, California and Colorado, but Clark’s is the company’s signature seafood, oak-grilled Spanish octopus, lobster rolls with butter, rockfish with grits, linguine and crepes with clams, and more. Its Malibu location also highlights Pacific Coast seafood, with its wine list also hailing from the Central Coast. Non-seafood options include steak, a burger covered in gruyere and salad.
The Malibu location sits on the edge of the new Cross Creek Ranch development and features a raw bar, 175 seats, an aquarium, fireplace and patio. Clark’s Oyster Bar in Malibu is open Sunday through Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
23465 Civic Center Road, Suite 210, Malibu, (310) 879-8508, clarksoysterbar.com
The closest bar area to Echo Park Amaro Bar is the Ramona Room.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
Ramona’s room
Echo Park’s Elf Cafe closed in the spring after nearly 20 years in business, but the owners recently brought the space back to life with Ramona’s Room.
A nopales taco with don hummus and pickled jalapenos at Ramona Room.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
The new Amaro Bar team also owns the Middle Eastern restaurant Dion and the European cafe Bar Sanzki, and their latest operation offers a bit more of both. Bar Sanzki’s beverage director Shawn Shepherd also heads the program at Ramona’s Room, where he’s built a menu around California and Italian amari, as well as European ports and sherries. They can be ordered a la carte or highballs or house cocktails.
Executive chef Mark Lopez — formerly of Little Dom’s, Budnoki, and Mirat — prepares an international menu of bar fare like house-smoked mussel escabeche, Cubano sandwiches, and an array of tacos on fresh tortillas, including the nopales variety that comes with Duusne’s. Ramon’s Room is open daily from 5pm to 11pm
2135 W. Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, instagram.com/theramonaroom
Spread matcha drinks and modern Japanese pastries at Studio City Cafe Matcha.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
Cafe Mecha
A diner-inspired riff on matcha is now open in Studio City, offering pastries, milkshakes, delicious drinks and a selection of imported teas from the well-known coffee brand.
Staff prepare freshly whisked matcha drinks at Café Matcha.
(Stephanie Brijo/Los Angeles Times)
Cafe Matcha is a new venture from Alfred Coffee and from a corner of Laurel Promenade Mall in Studio City, it offers cream-topped matcha lattes, hand-whisked rare matcha, and more under matcha milk jam, ham curry buns, and hojicha apple gelatos.
It builds on Alfred Tea Room’s tea-focused, tea-based shot of the coffee chain that runs from 2017 to 2023. But at Cafe Matcha it’s all about powdered green tea, which the store sources from many prefectures in Japan. Matcha accessories, such as whisks, shakers and tumblers, are also for sale. The food menu, created by kunbi vet Kiyoshi Tsukamoto, combines traditional Japanese ingredients with American stalwarts, resulting in items like miso cinnamon buns under a shio koji vanilla glaze. Cafe Matcha is open Tuesday to Sunday from 8am to 5pm
12070 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, cafe-matcha.com
Post Comment