BEVERLY HILLS: Did we say 'final word'? Silly Eater. We just spoke with Jonathan Morr, owner of BondST in New York, Miami and soon-to-open Beverly Hills, who told us his restaurant at the Thomspon Beverly Hills will open after Thanksgiving: "We'll do private tastings before Thanksgiving but we can't open on the holiday." Morr, who just arrived for a lengthy five-month stay, wants the restaurant to simply be known as BondST Beverly Hills. "I don't want to be known as the new hot spot, the new kid on the block," he says. "I want it to be like we've been here for years."

The restaurant takes up much of the main floor of the hotel and will have a second-floor lounge, booths, banquettes and a sushi bar. The decor is a combo of the NYC original with Dodd Mitchell touches (also designing the hotel); Morr describes it as "comfortable, cozy, sexy, moody." There's a custom-designed communal table made from a 2500-year-old tree (it was already dead, relax) adjacent to the sushi bar. The food will be the same mix of Japanese-inspired and sushi as in NYC. Does it intimidate him that there are so many Japanese restos here in LA? "They all do quite well," Morr says. "But it's not intimidating. BondST is obviously a Japanese restaurant, but in it's not about going out for Japanese. It's about going to BondST."

Next year, the hotel's rooftop restaurant will open, "But it will be the hotel's restaurant. It won't be BondST poolside." He's also consulting at Santa Monica's Oceana Hotel, which recently debuted a new look. And in February, he'll open Mainland, a French-Vietnamese noodle house at the new Palazzo Las Vegas.That's a lot of West Coast action, which is why Morr moved here for the time being. "I'm a local now. At least for awhile."
Fall Tracking Report: BondST at Thomspon Hotel [~ELA~]
· Jonathan Morr Brings NYC's BondST to Beverly Hills [~ELA~]

Posted in Buzz: Plywood, Eater Local: Beverly Hills

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