Eater Inside: Apple Restaurant

This earthy little number is Apple Restaurant, the newcomer with chef Bryan Ogden at the helm but also part of a complex that has Allison Melnick's exclusive Apple Lounge ("only the most beautiful people get past her velvet ropes") and a Pussycat Dolls Lounge. Ogden, of course, is the son of chef Bradley Ogden who is known for sophisticated, market-to-table cuisine at his eponymous Vegas restaurant and NoCal's Lark Creek Inn. The Apple website boasts that Ogden is "changing the way LA sees food," but his emphasis is similar to what he did at the Caesars resto during his tenure and not exactly groundbreaking for LA--seasonal, locally and internationally sourced ingredients from small farms and food artisans, occasionally organic (here's a sample menu). This isn't budget dining by any stretch, and it all may seem a bit incongruous---frog's legs with Sweet 100 tomatoes and parsley foam served in the same building with Pussycat Dolls writhing and kicking away---but three separate entrances hopefully isolate the scenes. We've tracked the restaurant here.