Mario Del Pero of Mendocino Farms To Open Blue Cow Feb 1 With Stellar BOH Lineup

Not long after launching Mendocino Farms in West Hollywood (location four for the mini chain), owners Mario Del Pero and Ellen Chen are gearing up to debut a new concept, Blue Cow Kitchen, on February 1 in the Casa space (Del Pero and Chen also own Casa) downtown.

With Blue Cow, Del Pero and Chen strive to up the ante on what can go between two slices of bread. “With Mendocino Farms, Ellen and I aim to elevate sandwiches from lunchtime standbys into thoughtful, modern, sustainable meals,” Del Pero said. “With Blue Cow, we are creating a place to test our most progressive sandwich ideas.”

The downtown Los Angeles restaurant will serve as a sandwich “think tank” with an ever-rotating lineup of guests chefs creating variations on the traditional sandwich. First up comes chef Jason Travi (Fraiche) and his slew of sausage creations that will be featured on Blue Cow’s opening menu.

Travi’s Wild Turkey sausage is made of house-ground turkey and topped with confit of onions soaked in Wild Turkey whiskey, grape must mustard, apple compote and pickled wild mushrooms. The Merguez, a house-ground lamb sausage, is garnished with chermoula crème fraiche, harissa, pickled zucchini, roasted red peppers and a cucumber-cherry tomato pico de gallo.

Executive Chef Joshua Smith (Church & State) will continue Blue Cow’s sandwich-with-a-twist theme, serving dishes like tofu Tater Tots with sweet red chile sauce and the porchetta with wild fennel pollen and topped with giardiniera and cracklins.

Steve Livigni (La Descarga, Harvard & Stone) is tapped to develop the seasonally inspired cocktails, including a selection of in-house sodas for a “soda-jerk meets retro-bartender” menu. Desserts by pastry chef and Jason Travi's better half, Miho, include an updated (ice cream) sandwich — a soft date cake cookie with caramelized orange peel paired with salted caramel ice cream and rimmed with crème brulée shards. [EaterWire]
— Jamie Wetherbe