A FOE (friend of Eater, if you forgot) dined at downtown's new Blue Velvet last night and sent in this report. Full disclosure, the dinner was set up for journalists and the like, and our tipster is a publicist/writer (but not a publicist for the restaurant), so consider this semi-flackage.
Chic and yummy aspects of any cutting-edge Westside restaurant, but it’s packaged in a downtown loft building overlooking a retro pool and the Kelly Green lit Staples Center glows through the floor to ceiling windows. Think: Hyde + Skybar + Bastide in a downtown polished cement and glass setting. Oh, and there’s not an ounce of pretentiousness. Being a LA native, the best part of Blue Velvet is that before developer Bret Mosher got his hands on it, it was a Holiday Inn.More after the jump…
· Blue Velvet opens downtown [Eater LA]
The chef is young blonde Kris Morningstar, formerly of Patina. This guy manages to make art of food, but it’s approachable. A tasting menu brought us hamachi atop marinated eggplant, bon-shimeji mushrooms, blood orange and garlic chips and a heavenly corn agnolotti of chanterelle mushroom, lime brown butter, parmesan and walnuts. The roasted quail breast with teeny tiny beyond-baby carrots, sherry reduction and mustard greens was amazing. A loin of venison was also served with creamed chard, potato bhocchi, glazed apples and bacon onion puree. Striped perfectly atop the lovely venison slices was a punctuation of rock salt. And the wines are super cool, low production, highly allocated choices from California and beyond.
