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Despite the intangible myths and hospitality surrounding chefs, the restaurant’s success is often summarised into some clever real estate decisions, with the 3 month old baby bistro being no exception. The self-proclaimed “a kind of bistro” by Buzzy is the final piece of the puzzle that completes the Alpine Courtyard in Victor Heights. At the time of writing, the trendy commercial establishment has on its own calming down a often forgotten neighbour on the border of Chinatown and Echo Park just north of the 110 highway.
The vintage charm of the place is obvious before you find a baby bistro. It was owned for years by conservation-oriented architect Jinborou and was developed to painstakingly. It consists of six transformed buildings, including a 1908 artisan house and three Victorian-era homes (one lives in a baby bistro), arranged in a lush, central courtyard filled with lush, lush gardens.
Photo: Patricia Kelly Yoh in the garden in the Outalpin courtyard during the day.
In cities with sun-bleached asphalt, minimal shade covering and other hostile urban features, stepping into an alpine courtyard feels truly heavenly. Every day, Angelenos picks up plant-based pastries, a specialist caffeinated drink of heavy water coffee, and Gourmet Banchan from Perilla LA on the Baker Bench. After 4:30pm, when Perilla closes the store, the only restaurant remaining is the satellite post base for Kassel’s burgers, operated in the same space as the bakery bench. Finally, at 5:30pm, Baby Bistro opens the door and offers veteran Chef Miles Thompson’s incredibly unorthodox approach to table-to-ble dishes. This is one of the most enjoyable restaurant back patios across Los Angeles, an affordable natural wine list by Andy Schwartz, an alumnus of Los Angeles.
The small, sparsely decorated 35-seat space feels like home once. (In fact, Schwartz said an elderly former resident visited a baby bistro in the first few weeks of the business. Just look at what he did in his old living space.) From the start, there is warm hospitality to check in with his host. Baby Bistro’s six-item menu is ostensibly served like a medical record, but the menu is designed to be ordered as a whole and split into two people (yes, like a tasting menu). That price is before the drinks involved.
Photo: Kort Havensthe Patio by Baby Bistro
Personally, I think it’s a bit on the expensive side at the end of the day for seasonal wine bar dishes, but the loving bungalow atmosphere is more than compensation, and the chef’s culinary talent translates into some of the city’s most delicious and indecent California dishes. After all, this is Thompson, the Culinary Wonderkind who opened Echo Park’s short-lived but acclaimed Alammet (Splash!) in 2013 and turned to the same child actor who directed Michael’s Michaels in Santa Monica from 2016 to 2018.
The first blushing is blushing, and the food at Baby Bistro is almost as modest as the space and the scene itself. Almost every night, a group of stylishly dressed couples and friends are the perfect refreshing non-alcoholic option, sipping on a summer evening with wine, aperitif and a drink of cold barley tea on a set of drinks without drinks. But like Baby Bistro’s little back patio, banana tree gloves and pink leaves make you feel like you’re on a reality TV show set on a tropical island. The small menu hides another unexpected surprise.
Like the sea-shining above average A24 film of Nostalgia reboot and live-action remake, Baby Bistro earns major brownie points just to try
In 2023, Schwartz and Thompson made their first splash in the LA dining scene, when they debuted Baby Bistro as a summer pop-up inside the Hotel Normandy in Koreatown (home to the original Cassel owned by Lou), essentially changing the menu every other week. So far, the permanent version of the baby bistro has provided much more culinary stability. Not to mention the cheap, homemade onion bread loaded with funky, bright orange Liptauers. The same bread can be ordered plain and a la carte to smoke sauce from a plate like main, including the recently added shrimp in the pattanesca sauce. If available, add it to your homemade terrines, served with burnt broccolini.
Photo: Patricia Kelly Yo spends time with baby bistro onion bread
There is also a cucumber and squid salad with shining spots of white tamari, yuzukosh, lemon rinds and dried red bean paste, as well as a comfortable, crispy salad made with other ingredients, turnips, locally made tofu (from Gardena’s Maige Tofu), rasparry and crushed pittaios. The concise menu downplays the complexity of each dish. Each item is listed as two main ingredients, such as “cucumber, squid” and “turnip and tofu” in the salad I just described. At the end of the meal, Thompson spins his head (and from what I’ve heard from a friend) on a trendy vegetable dessert course: cucumber clemax, poached dollar barb, fennel leaves, and pine nut cookies topped with thyme vinegar. Generally, chefs enjoy sweet and delicious mixing, which is pretty much successful.
In my experience, the addition of a new menu was a bit of a hit or miss. These include the intermediate buckwheat top chicken sausage, which replaces the previous colot steak served with wooden ear mushrooms. Nevertheless, a handful of strong staples and an undeniably quaint atmosphere contribute to Baby Bistro’s current status as my pick of LA’s best new restaurant. Another major factor? The city’s industry-wide slowdown, which has led to dozens of restaurants closures since January, and the summer has led to a relatively few talkative opening. Naturally, this draws the collective attention of the media to other years and seasons of the LA dining scene to places that may have fallen into the territory of “beloved neighbourhood restaurants” or “the perfect place for the next time.”
Photo: Patricia Kelly Yoh is timed out on turnip and tofu dishes at a baby bistro.
After a second visit in early July, it can be said that Baby Bistro belongs to both these (still quite respectable!) categories, unless they are all the absolute demons of California cuisine. Like the sea-shining above average A24 film of nostalgia reboots and live-action remakes, Baby Bistro scores major brownie points when everyone else appears to be giving up on a remote, affordable, chef-driven dining. In many ways, the restaurant resembles tomatoes in Westchester and Vinfolk in South Bay. All three eateries offer a more accessible version of chef-driven cuisine at more attractive prices for weekly date nights and group special offensive dinners.
“If you were in Europe, you would stumble over it, eat incredible food, you don’t remember what it calls, and you would never try to grasp it for the rest of your life. That’s the idea for this restaurant,” Thompson told The Los Angeles Times in 2023, explaining the concept behind Baby Bistro. Certainly, I find that romantic, but the reality is that baby bistros are not in Europe. It is one of the most auto-centric cities in the United States, with “stumbling” (or driving to more walkable parts of town for many) being largely planned, and similarities between social media and marketing strategies are essential for the success of new restaurants. However, given the cute vibe, I’m happy that I overlooked some of the drawbacks and circled the car park block.
Photo: The pine nut cookies topped with cucumber clemax and poached dollar barb at Baby Bistro are courteous.
Baby Bistro won four stars, “great” – from us. For more information about Time Out curation methods and ethics policies, visit the global How We Review page.
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